


Be Near Me Now

by CinnaAtHeart



Series: Be Near Me Now [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, CaptainFalcon, Darcy & Sam: Brotp, Darcy & Steve: my other Brotp, Darcy Lewis' A+ Driving, F/M, Heavy Drinking, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Road Trip of Justice, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Slow Burn, WinterShock - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-05-14 18:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 80,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5754022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnaAtHeart/pseuds/CinnaAtHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The number 11 is a good number for Darcy Lewis.</p><p>This is in no small part thanks to the elegant, ruby red writing that wraps itself around her right wrist like an intimate bracelet, its secret zealously guarded. Even so, it’s no secret to those she’s closest to that she has a tendency to up her eyeliner game and actually curl or straighten her hair properly on the 11th of every month.</p><p>The day Jane’s doodad machine malfunctions is not the 11th. It’s not even 11am.</p><p>Go figure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The 11th

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [These Words are Knives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5529152) by [CinnaAtHeart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnaAtHeart/pseuds/CinnaAtHeart). 
  * Inspired by [write love on my skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1835587) by [amusewithaview](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amusewithaview/pseuds/amusewithaview). 



> The plotbunnie for this fic comes from my one shot series 'These Words Are Knives', and it recieved such great feedback that I could hardly just leave it like that. So here you are! A proper, bonafide fic! With an actual plot and everything!
> 
> For both my sake and yours, I've condensed the first three chapters into just the one- for those who've already read them on tumblr or my one shot series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This darling titlecard comes from Awkwardnormalcy ([tumblr](http://awkwardnormalcy.tumblr.com/) and [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Awkwardnormalcy/pseuds/Awkwardnormalcy)). You should go check her out!

 

 

 

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>     Be near me now,
>     My tormenter, my love, be near me—
>     At this hour when night comes down.  
>     > 
>     _Be Near Me,_ Faiz Ahmed Faiz

 

**Chapter One: The 11th**

The number 11 is a good number for Darcy Lewis,

She had her first kiss on the 11th. She got her first pet on her 11 birthday. She met Jane on the 11th. Shit, she even won five hundred bucks in a bingo game once, the clincher being – you guessed it- the number 11.

Eleven is her number. Her _lucky_ number.

This benevolence for the prime number is in no small part thanks to the elegant, ruby red writing that wraps itself around her right wrist like an intimate bracelet, its secret zealously guarded. Even so, it’s no secret to those she’s closest to that she has a tendency to up her eyeliner game and actually curl or straighten her hair properly on the 11th of every month.

She’s one of the fortunate ones, after all. Darcy Lewis is one of the lucky few with at least _some_ semblance of an idea of when she’ll meet ‘the one’. So forgive her if she’s maybe a little more invested in her appearance. She doesn’t want to disappoint.

The day Jane’s doodad machine malfunctions is not the 11th. It’s not even 11am.

Go figure.

\-----

Darcy remember an intense heat and an insistent and obnoxious beeping noise. She remembers the familiar feeling of tools in her hands as she tries to fix a machine she has only a shaky understanding of. Most of all, she remembers the agony of being torn apart and put back together again and again and _again._ She tries to scream, but there’s not enough air in her lungs for even a whimper- she’s barely even sure if she _has_ lungs anymore.

It lasts an eternity. It lasts barely a second. Darcy knows nothing- _is_ nothing.

And then it all just

Stops.

She’s _something_ , she’s Darcy. She’s thrown to the ground with a _thump_ that rattles in her chest. Aches in her throat. She gasps. Groans. Smells pine needles and wet earth. Tastes wood-smoke and the remnants of coffee. Hears confused and startled shouts.

“ _Fuck me_.” She gasps, throwing what she hopes is still her arm over her eyes. Everything hurts. She’s going to kill Jane when she gets back from wherever the _fuck_ she is. _If_ she works it out, which with Jane is a possible no, but she _will_ have the help of Tony and Bruce and possibly Heimdall.

Darcy hopes.

“Miss? Miss, are you alright?” a man asks. He sounds familiar. She lets her arm flop to the ground. Looks familiar too.

“… Steve?” she breathes. The man’s eyes widen and he flinches. She wishes she was still wearing her glasses. His shape grows indistinct, “What’re-” she tries again, words too slurred for _her_ to even understand. “Wht’re y’dwan ere-” the slurring fails to stop. Darcy makes a soft noise of frustration, and a warm hand touches hers, but the face that grows closer grows no clearer. Stupid glasses.

Vaguely she remembers, as the black rises around her, that she’d been wearing her contacts today.

\-----

Darcy wakes with a start, with a splitting headache and handcuffed to a canvas cot to boot. She knows this because she almost strangles herself with the arm stretched across her chest and neck when she tries to sit up.

“Jesus _fuck_!” she hisses at the pitched roof of her makeshift prison, flopping back down onto the stretcher, pride smarting more than anything, “Jane, I swear to Thor, if you manage to fix whatever clusterfuck your machine has gotten me into, I will wring your skinny fucking neck. And I do not care what you actual god golden retriever of a boyfriend looks like, so help me I will leave you for dead in your lab, surrounded by the carnage of your _stupid_ fucking machines. _Just give the interpolator a whack, Darcy. Just fix it with some duck-tape, Darcy. It’s fine, Darcy. I do it all the time, d-_ ”

Somewhere to her left, a man coughs.

Darcy’s incensed mutterings cut off abruptly, blood rising to her cheeks. She turns, and just _knows_ the blush is growing more pronounced.

A young man is staring at her, trying hard not to grin at her in amusement.

_Idiot_ , Darcy berates herself. Should have checked out the tent first, before launching into an angry rant.

She studies him- around her age, with the kind of handsome face that would have had her mother swooning over. His dark hair looks as though it may have passed as neat two days ago, and the three day old growth on his face tells the same story, but his eyes are bright and intelligent, sparking with ill-hidden amusement. He looks familiar, she thinks, but she can’t quite pin down who he reminds her of. But what’s most striking is the well-worn military uniform he wears, circa WWII.

Darcy blows out heavily through her nose, “Well fuck,” she says, brain-to-mouth filter once again failing her spectacularly, “please tell me I’ve just stumbled into an impromptu LARPing event in Central Park. What’s the date, Mister Handsome Army Dude?”

The amusement slips off his face. His gaze turns intense. Assessing.

Darcy winces, “You have no idea what LARPing is, do you?”

The man gives her a flat stare. Darcy sighs heavily in resignation and scrubs her face with her free hand, “I am so, so screwed, aren’t I? Go on then, let’s rip off the proverbial Band-Aid; what’s the date?”

“Well,” Handsome Mister Army Dude says eventually, “it’s currently the eleventh, but with the way you’re running your mouth, it’ll be the twelth in no time. But somethin’ tells me that’s not quite what you’re askin’.”

Darcy stares. She’s fairly sure her mouth has fallen open.

“I- but- you’re-”

“Yeah.” He looks like he wants to smile, but can’t quite bring himself to do it, “But forgive me if I’m not jumpin’ for joy.”

Darcy flinches, but if her suspicions are correct, then she is fucked up the wazoo, and meeting her soulmate is _not_ going to end happily.

“See,” her _soulmate_ carries on, curling forwards to rest his forearms on his knees. It would be sinister, but the glint in his eyes is all wrong. He looks angry, “I’ve been blank for a long time. And then the _funniest thing_ happened about three hours ago. Right around the time you fell outta the sky.

“Can you guess what it was?”

Darcy swallows back the rising distress, “Your soulmark turned up.”

The man nod and leans back in his chair, “My soulmark turned up. Outta the blue. And ya know, just as the burnin’ feeling starts up, here you come, fallin’ out of the sky and almost squashin’ Dernier. But I figure, sure. Could just be a coincidence, that. Though it’s mighty fuckin’ weird you just turning up like that, _and_ you seemed to know Steve ta boot- even though he swears black and blue he’s never met you in his life, and I’m inclined to believe him there, ‘cause you seem pretty damn hard to f-”

“Steve’s here?” Darcy interrupts, finally catching up to what he’s saying, “Steve Rogers? I didn’t just hallucinate him?”

His eyes narrow, anger and suspicion warring in his gaze, “See now, that’s exactly the kind of ‘coincidence’ that I’m disinclined to trust. ‘Cause doll, this thing right here?” he motions between the two of them, “This seems right up Hydra’s alley.”

Darcy’s eyes widen, “Hydra-” Steve, Dernier… “Holy shit, you’re Bucky Barnes.”

Barnes’ eyes shutter and he stands. Prowls towards her until he’s positively looming. Darcy refuses to shrink back, “You shouldn’t know my name, doll. If you think knowing my name is meant to charm me, then you got another thing fucking coming.”

But Darcy says nothing, because she’s remembered exactly how this story ends. She wants to cry, because this is just too c _ruel._

Because James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, best friend of Steve, member of the Howling Commandos, the most infamous commando units of the second world war, doesn’t make it through this war. Sergeant Barnes is listed as killed in action in 1945, falling from a moving train somewhere in the Swiss Alps. His body is never recovered.

Darcy starts to cry. She can’t help it. The thought of never even having a chance to know her soulmate strikes her right to the core; she didn’t think she’d be one of _those_ , the ones who lost their mates before it had even begun. More fool her.

Barnes looks startled at the sudden emergence of tears, but he schools himself quickly, “Look,” he says, “whatever Hydra threatened you with, we can protect you from. You don’t gotta pretend you’re my soulmate-” Darcy flinches and he breaks off. She shakes her head vehemently. She takes a moment to compose herself.

“That’s not why I’m c-crying.” She sighs, and reaches down to pull up the sleeve of her sweater. Barnes watches her warily, eyeing the way she works around the cuff on her wrist as she pulls away the bandage wrapped around it.

He sucks in a sharp breath. Looks from her wrist to her face and back again. She knows it’s not all visible, but there must be enough for him to recognise his own handwriting. His words.

“Hydra couldn’t manage _that_. Those’re my words- my first words to you. No way they could have predicted that.”

“ _No_.” Darcy says firmly. She tugs at the handcuff bitterly, “this is _wrong_. This is so, _so wrong_. You’re meant to be from _my_ time.”

His eyes spark, “What are you sayin?”

Darcy opens her mouth, but any possible way she could phrase it sounds ridiculous, “This isn’t my time.”

He frowns in confusion and is silent for a long moment, mulling over her answer, “You sayin’ you’re a… time traveller?”

She nods shakily, “I can’t prove it,” she says softly. It’s true; there’s no way she can definitively prove to Barnes, or Carter or the rest of the Howling Commandos that she’s from 2013. Her phone (if it even survived the displacement) could be passed off as advanced enemy technology, and any future events she could predict were impossible to prove until the day they’d actually happened. If they’ve ever happen, now that she was here.

The man known as James Buchanan Barnes sighs, “Stranger things have happened, I suppose.” He pulls out his pistol. Keeps it aimed at her as he kneels on the ground in front of her, “Don’t go giving me trouble, sweetheart.”

She nods slowly and he unlocks the cuff connected to the cot and motions with his weapon to her other hand. She doesn’t flinch when he snaps it back into place over her free wrist. His touch is gentle, but impersonal, as though trying desperately to remain professional.

Darcy can give him that.

Given half the chance, Darcy would give him a lot of things.

“Where are we going?” she says instead. Barnes hums softly and rests a hand on her shoulder as she stands.

“To people who can actually decide if this is above my pay grade or not.”

“Stark and Carter?” she won’t lie; she’s hopeful. Bucky squeezes her shoulder a little more insistently.

“You need to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

He gives her a funny look, “Sayin’ things like you know everything about us. S’queer.”

“Sorry.”

Darcy knows she must look a right sight; dirty, handcuffed and tearstained, being led by one Sergeant Barnes at gunpoint out of one tent and through the small camp set up. They garner more than a few looks, and Darcy is exceedingly conscious of her brightly coloured tights and oversized sweater, the cuffs rolled to the elbow, her soulmark more than present in its crimson red.

Like blood.

The man she’ll one day know as Steve meets them at the door to the largest tent in the camp. His eyes slip down from her still wet face and red eyes to the mark above the handcuffs. He frowns. Darcy remembers that only those who had met their soulmate ever dared to leave it uncovered in the forties.

“Buck-” he says warningly.

“-Not a word, Rogers.” Bucky snaps. Darcy tries to unfocus her gaze; she doesn’t know these men, “Not a fucking word.” Steve complies, but Darcy suspects it’s only because he doesn’t see any evidence of physical harm on her, “Is Stark in there?”

Steve nods slowly, eyes still glued to Darcy. Christ she must look like a fucking harlot to him, “With Agent Carter. She say anything?”

“Inside.” Barnes growls and he holsters his pistol. Darcy is grateful- the gun was making her antsy. He guides her inside, squeezing her shoulder as though he couldn’t remove his hand, though perhaps that was just wishful thinking on her part.

The insides of the tent are a queer mix of the military order she’s used to seeing in Steve’s apartments in the Tower, and an eclectic mess of machinery and paper notes scrawled with diagrams and numbers. A Stark undoubtedly lives here. Agent Peggy Carter straightens from a casual slouch at a table nearby upon their entrance. She makes an imposing silhouette, refined and austere in her uniform and Darcy feels like a downright slob in her presence.

“Stark?” Bucky barks, “You in here? I gotta conundrum for you to puzzle over.”

A man pops up from under a table. He bears such a striking resemblance to Tony it’s almost physically painful, “Barnes? Didn’t know you even knew big words like that.”

Darcy finds herself bristling almost against her will at the comment, but Bucky just brushes it off with an emotionless ‘fuck off, Stark’. He nudges her forwards, touch finally leaving, “Darcy here says she’s a time traveller.”

That familiar Stark focus zeroes onto her, “Is that so?”

“S’what she’s claiming.”

Howard Stark doesn’t acknowledge him, their presence all but forgotten, “What time are you from, Darcy?”

Darcy bites her lip. Telling them wouldn’t hurt, she supposes, “March 29th, 2013.”

There is a sharp inhalation from the three men. Agent Carter stands unaffected.

“2013?” Steve echoes in disbelief.

“Bull. Shit.” Bucky says flatly.

“Astounding.” Stark Snr breathes.

Darcy swallows nervously. Her soulmark _itches_. “I don’t-” she starts haltingly, before Stark can barrage her with the questions she can just _see_ sitting on the tip of his tongue, “I don’t know how I got here. I was just fixing a machine for Jane- my boss- and then _poof_ , here I am in 1945.”

Barnes has the good fortune enough to not mention that he never ended up telling her the year. Darcy knows her history well enough.

“Mm,” Stark says, “there’s so many questions to ask- so much to _learn._ I suppose the question we’d all like an answer to should go first. Do we win the war?”

Darcy thinks of Dresden. Thinks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Cold War that dominated the latter half of the twentieth century. She thinks of her grandparents, survivors of the Holocaust, the both of them. And she thinks very, very carefully about the butterfly effect.

Darcy says nothing.

Stark huffs crossly, “Well come on, girl; do we?”

She remains mute.

He sighs heavily, “Okay then. Loaded question, I suppose. How about an easier question; is this our last war?”

Darcy closes her eyes. She _will not speak_. Steve and Barnes remain silent on either side of her. Darcy thinks of the funny looks Steve had sent her way the first few weeks after they’d met (and of his double take, that first time. She’d almost thought she might have been his soulmate, the way he’d reacted), and thinks she understands now.

Stark Snr continues to question her, growing more and more agitated with each mute answer she gives. She can almost feel Bucky growing angrier in response, and her heart aches at the thought of losing him.

Even so, it’s a relief when the shining portal appears right in front of her.

“Oh, thank _God._ ” She breathes amidst the shouting that erupts around her. She turns to take one last look at her soulmate.

“I’m sorry.” She says to his slackjawed, shocked face. And then she steps forward before they can catch her and the light swallows her whole once again.

 

 

When she lands safe, back in her time, Steve holds her hand as she sobs into his chest for long, _long_ hours.

* * *

 

**Chapter Two: The Bottle**

After she’s been checked out by Bruce, and Jane has apologised to her enough to make her ears bleed and she’s cried into Steve’s shoulder for what must have been an _eternity_ , Darcy retreats to her apartment, sets her security to ‘do not disturb’ mode and settles down to stay in there as long as she possibly can.

She has some re-evaluations to do.

Her trip is a revelation, and not the pleasant kind. Losing her soulmate had simply never been an option. And sure, Darcy was always plenty ready for them to be platonic (it happened to plenty of people, after all), but to lose them entirely within the space of a few hours never even occurred to her.

And yet, here she is, with words still the colour of blood wrapped around her wrist like a _curse_ , stuck in the twenty-first century with a soulmate who’s been dead seventy years.

She swallows thickly at the thought, stumbling through her apartment with legs that feel like lead. Darcy’s not even sure if there’s enough energy left in her to cry. She’s been gone for a week and a half, but the place seems to be untouched. The x-files dvd case is still open in front of the tv, and there are magazines strewn across the coffee table- one still open on some trashy theory about Steve and Tony’s ‘forbidden love’ ( _ha_ ). She’d planned on showing it to Steve whilst he was drinking coffee.

“Fuck this,” Darcy mutters to her silent apartment. She pulls out all the alcohol she has- bourbon, vodka and a quarter bottle of spiced rum- and settles down on the kitchen floor for a long night of drinking herself into an incoherent stupor.

Natasha finds her late into the night, down a bottle of rum and a glass into her bourbon. She appears from nowhere, standing at the edge of her kitchen like a spectre.

“Go away,” she tells the woman. Her tumbler feels like ice in her trembling hands. Natasha shakes her head. The light of the digital clock on her microwave casts her face into dark shadows. Darcy can just make out the dust on her arms and shoulders.

“You’ll give yourself alcohol poisoning,” she says softly. Darcy laughs at her bitterly, and takes a pointed sip of bourbon. It tastes like nail polish remover.

“Good.” She grimaces. Natasha remains impassive, but she sits beside her on the cool tiles and helps herself to a generous drink straight from her unopened bottle of vodka. The face she pulls makes Darcy laugh again.

“That tastes like shit.”

“Only the best,” she mutters into her tumbler. Natasha takes another swig.

“You scared me, птичка,” she confesses quietly. “Foster didn’t know if she could ever bring you back to us. But Steve knew where to find you.”

Darcy stares up at the ceiling. She wonders what Jarvis thinks of all this. Human drama. “I met him, when I… landed in 1945. He didn’t know who I was.” She takes another gulp and it burns all the way down.

“He told me.”

“I met Howard Stark, too.” She huffs a frustrated laugh, “He was just as much an asshole as Tony said he was. Kept on asking me about ‘the future’.”

Natasha snorts and crosses her legs. “I am grateful to have you back, Darcy.”

Her eyes burn, and Darcy keeps her gaze pointed upwards to stave off the oncoming tears, “Yeah,” she says thickly, “I’m glad to be back too.”

Natasha doesn’t comment on her obvious lie- only takes another drink of vodka as Darcy wrestles with her boiling emotions. She doesn’t want to cry again- doesn’t want to turn into a blubbering mess in front of Natasha- a woman she’s certain would never let emotions hijack her like that. And she’s cried too much today. Darcy doesn’t know what she’d do if she broke down for the third time in twenty-four hours.

“How did you get in here?” she asks eventually, once she’s certain she won’t burst into tears. “I told Jarvis I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

Natasha gives her the side-eye. “So you could drink yourself to death?” she snorts. “I don’t think so.”

Darcy scowls at her. “I’m not suicidal.”

“I didn’t think you were.” Darcy looks away, unable to hold her unwavering gaze. “But you’re not okay. Something evidently happened for you to be like this. More than Steve remembers.”

She bites her lip but doesn’t answer her unspoken question. Lets it hang in the air awkwardly, untouched and unmentioned. Natasha sighs and runs her thumb around the rim of her bottle. “I used the air vents.”

Darcy lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “I thought those were Barton’s domain.”

Natasha smirks at her. “And who do you think he learnt that trick from?”

She huffs a laugh and rolls her head over to stark at the glowing numbers on the microwave. 02:21. She’s not quite sure when she started drinking, but it was probably several hours ago by now.

“Natasha?”

“Yes, птичка?”

“Do- do you have a soulmate?” Natasha turns to stare at her, expression unreadable. Darcy stares down at her empty glass, feeling ashamed of even asking. It is not her place.

“Yes,” Natasha says into the silence of the kitchen. She drinks deeply from the bottle, showing no sign of discomfort at the burn of alcohol. Darcy pours herself another glass of bourbon, but doesn’t drink.

“Are they…?”

“No,” the other woman says shortly. Darcy watches her throat move as she swallows, and feels even worse for asking.

“I’m sorry,” she burbles, tears threatening to fall all over again. She sniffles and hides her face in her hands. ‘God, I- I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m sorry- I- fuck. _Fuck._ I’m a mess.”

A pause. Natasha sighs heavily and wraps an arms around her shoulders and pulls her in. Darcy shudders at the contact and clutches at her jacket tightly. “They died a long time ago, птичка,” she murmurs, voice drawn tight with pain. “When I was a little girl. The Red Room took only blanks and those with dead marks. And I… I never met them. You cannot be hurt by that which you do not know.”

“Does that lie help you sleep at night?”

The other woman swallows audibly. “Sometimes.”

Darcy sobs. Natasha croons to her softly and runs a hand through her hair. “I- I met mine. In- in 1944.”

Natasha’s hand stills for only the briefest of moments before starting up again. “I thought as much,” she admits softly. “The way you touched your wrist…”

Darcy holds back the wail of grief pushing at her teeth. She shouldn’t be this distressed- she never even _knew_ the man, but the pain of losing her soulmate before even holding an amicable conversation together hurts like a stab in the gut.

“Who?”

 She draws in a deep breath. She smells faintly of alcohol and sandalwood. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

The other woman goes very still, hand halting once again on its path through her hair. “Does Steve know?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know- I don’t think so. Not unless Bucky-” she breaks off. Licks her lips. “Bucky- he said he’d been a blank all his life, until… until-”

“Until you appeared.”

She nods against the warm skin of Natasha’s neck. The woman hugs her just a little tighter. Darcy feels nauseous, but can’t bring herself to pull away. “He thought I was Hydra, at first.”

“I’m sorry, птичка.”

She sniffs. “They’re still red,” she croaks. And that’s the worst of it- she can’t even have the closure of faded words on her skin, so she can move on.

Natasha pushes her back in surprise. “What?”

Darcy lifts up her wrist. In the dark of the kitchen, the writing (neat cursive. Darcy had always loved that writing) looks almost black. “They haven’t faded.”

Natasha frowns at her words. For the first time that Darcy can remember, she looks unnerved. “They’ve always been red?”

She nods. Breathes out shakily. “Always. I used to match my nail polish to them.”

And _that’s_ something she’ll never do again. She may have to destroy her whole collection, if it comes to it.

Natasha’s lips twitch. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Anyone could have noticed my mark when I came back.”

“But no one knows he was your soulmate?”

She shakes her head. Laughs softly at the injustice of it all. “Trust me to get a broken soulmark. You know, I used to think myself one of the _lucky_ ones.” She swallows thickly, suddenly realising how childish she sounds; Natasha never even got to _meet_ her soulmate.

Natasha takes her face in her hands and runs away the tears on her face. She looks thoughtful, as though she never noticed Darcy’s thoughtless remark. “I’ve never heard of anyone’s marks staying in full colour after death.” Darcy flinches at the d-word and Natasha smiles at her in sympathy. “Soulmarks are not the be all and end all of love,” she reminds her gently.

“I know,” Darcy whispers. She pulls away; takes another good drink from her glass. The nausea grows stronger- she’ll have to stop soon. Darcy can’t find it in herself to care. “Doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“No,” she agrees. She sounds immeasurably sad. “It doesn’t.”

Natasha gets up, pulling two glasses from the shelf and filling them with water. She hands one to Darcy and she takes a long drink. After straight bourbon, it tastes sweet and cool.

“You should tell Steve,” the redhead says quietly. “This isn’t a burden either of you should carry alone.”

Darcy hums and keeps her stare fixed on the lights of Manhattan she can see out the windows at the end of her room. Natasha replaces the glass she’s drained with another.

“You will find happiness again, Darcy.”

She bites her lip. The pain is only a dull ache beneath the drunken numbness. “I wanted happiness with _him_. I wanted my _soulmate_.”

Her voice cracks at the end.

“The world is cruel,” and there’s that distant pain in her voice again. The sound of it makes Darcy’s heart _ache_. She takes a hold of Natasha with an uncoordinated hand and thinks of a little red-headed girl, watching in horror as her soulmark leaches of colour, fading away to nothing more than an old scar upon her skin.

She doesn’t know which of their fates are worse.

She coughs, and rubs her sternum. “I should probably sleep.”

“You should,” Natasha hums, and squeezes back before letting go and standing again. She offers Darcy her hand and she lets the other woman pull her up- stumbles into her arms. Her head spins sickeningly at the change in altitude, nausea growing worse.

“I think I’m going to die,” she moans into her chest. Natasha clicks her tongue in dissatisfaction.

“You won’t die,” she says unsympathetically. “Though I’m impressed by your tolerance.”

“Yeah,” she slurs, “I’m a regular fucking Tony Stark.” Natasha laughs. They’re moving, Darcy notices absently, her feet guided along of their own accord.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Natasha scoffs, “You’re far better than Stark.”

She laughs bitterly, mind wandering back to Stark Snr, interrogating her as she stood between Steve and her soulmate, like sentinels to guard her from harm. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Darcy.” Natasha sits her down on her bed. It’s exactly as she left it- covers thrown back, half her pillows on the floor. It feels like an age ago since she last touched these sheets, but for her it’s barely even been twelve hours. Darcy feels older and far wearier.

“Darcy, look at me.”

She complies with the quiet order half-heartedly. Natasha’s eyes are sharp enough to cut, if she were to wish it. She rests a cool palm on Darcy’s cheek. “You are not alone. It’s not healthy to carry a grief like this on your own.” The corner of her lip twitches. “And remember- you’re young. You will find your happiness.”

“Did you find yours?”

Her eyes widen a fraction- as good as a flinch- and she stays quiet for a long and weighted moment. The tension in the air is so thick it’s a struggle for her to breathe, but in her drunkenness, Darcy refuses to withdraw her question.

“Yes,” she confesses eventually, “I have.”

Darcy wipes at her eyes, sniffling unattractively. She believes her. “Thank-you,” she whispers, as the redhead pushes her back down onto her bed. Natasha offers her a soft smile.

“There is nothing to thank me for, птичка.”

Darcy bites her lip. “Stay? I don’t… I don’t want to…” she can’t bring herself to finish, but Natasha understands her all the same. She slides into the bed, propping herself up against the headboard. Darcy wraps an arm around her leg, and one of Natasha’s hands fall back onto her head.

“Sleep,” she says.

“Thank-you,” Darcy replies. They both fall silent, and Darcy focusses on the faint sound of Natasha’s breathing and the gentle pressure of slender fingers carding through her hair.

The feeling in her heart when she falls asleep is something very close to peace.

* * *

 

**Chapter Three: The Phone Call**

Shield’s dark side rears its ugly head, and Darcy watches the Helicarriers fall from the sky with her heart in her mouth and dark and vicious fear churning in her gut.

She doesn’t know if Steve and Natasha are alive or dead. Doesn’t know if she’s going to have to bury two of her closest friends- if she lives through any of this at all. Hydra is just a fairytale now. The secret big bads of WWII, that Captain America and his band of merry men fought and destroyed.

But Shield… Hydra all along?

The thought _terrifies_ her.

For a moment at least.

And then the data comes pouring in- Natasha bringing all of Shield’s dirty laundry out for everyone to see.

And then Darcy gets really, really angry.

\-----

She gets the call in the dead of the night.

Had Darcy been sleeping, she’s certain she would have missed it, but- what with Steve being labelled a traitor and then Shield falling and his body being recovered from the shore of the Potomac- Darcy is understandably skittish. She doesn’t think she _could_ sleep, even if she tried. As it stands, Jane’s only managed to get her to eat something substantial after they’d heard Steve was alive. In hospital, but alive.

She’d forced herself to focus on the obscene amount of data Jarvis had managed to retrieve from the Shield dump. There’s _so much_ ; Darcy barely knows where to start, and the files she does read leave her too nauseous to try stomaching anything else.

She starts on people of interest index- and almost throws up when she finds her and Jane on it- and that leads to an almost endless list of people under Shield-instituted witness protection. She categorises them as best she can, and Jarvis promises to pass the information onto the relevant people. By this point of the night, all she can hope for is that it’s enough for now.

The shrill ringing of her phone has her fumbling- it slides across the work bench and falls onto the floor (thank the lord for Stark-improved phones). She barely catches it before it runs out.

“Hello?” she says cautiously, and puts the call on speakerphone; her cell lists the number only as private, and post Hydra, she’d rather be safe than sorry.

A heavy breath on the other side of the line. “ _Darcy_.”

She straightens. “ _Steve_?” she sighs in relief. “Oh, _thank_ _Thor_ \- are you okay?”

He laughs shakily. It sounds pained. “ _Well, I’m still breathing_ ,” he murmurs. He laughs again, “ _And… I met him- I found my soulmate. So… all things considered, I’m better than I could be._ ”

Darcy sucks in a sharp breath of surprise. Steve had been blank before the ice, much like… like his friend. She knows how much this means to him. How waking with words he thought he’d never see felt an awful lot like a second chance. One that he didn’t want to accept for a long time. “For real?”

“ _For real. Sam- you’ll like him. He’s… he’s really something else._ ”

And bless him, but he sounds halfway to smitten already.

She lets out a joyous squeal and ignores the sharp pang of jealousy in her gut, “Oh Steve, that’s fantastic! I’m so happy for you- I can’t wait to meet him.”

He huffs, sounding happy and strained all at once. “ _Yeah. He’s coming back with me to the Tower._ ”

Darcy frowns. The move is kind of quick, even for Steve ‘impulsive-is-my-middle-name’ Rogers. Her eyes widen at a thought- there’d been a new face on the scene of the Triskelion. Some guy with mechanical wings. “Oh my God. It’s the guy with the wings, isn’t it? You bagged yourself a superhero, didn’t you?”

An extended pause.

“ _Sometimes, Darcy, your ability to put two and two together scares me_.”

She grins. Spins herself around in her wheelie chair. “I am a force to be reckoned with. Maybe that’s _my_ superpower. You could call me ‘ _The Elucidator’_.”

“ _Catchy_ ,” he snorts, and then grows quiet. Darcy frowns- she can feel the discomfort coming off him from over the phoneline.

“Steve? What’s wrong?”

“ _He’s alive, Darcy. Bucky didn’t die_.”

The world goes still

And

Quiet.

“ _The fall didn’t kill him,_ ” Steve carries on. He sounds joyous and heartbroken and astounded all at once. This must feel like a miracle to him. “ _Zola did something to him, when they captured the 107 th. Made him like me. The Soviets found him- gave him a metal arm. Sold him off to Hydra eventually. They-_ God _\- the stuff they must have done to him, Darce,_ ” he chokes out, “ _wiped his memories- turned him into their_ tool. _But_ \- shit- _I fought him. He- he started to_ remember _me!_ ”

Her hands start to shake. Bucky is alive Bucky never died Bucky is _ALIVE_.

“ _Darcy?_ ”

“He’s alive?”

Steve is silent for a long moment. Darcy feels stretched thin; like one touch will shatter her. “He’s alive?” she asks again- louder, this time. Steve sighs, and it’s like all the energy’s flown out of him. Her wrist beneath the band she never removes _burns_. She rubs at it- feels the scars that warps her words through the soft cotton. She’d taken a razor to them on a particularly bad day early on, right before she’d cracked and started seeing an actual psychologist. Steve had been so scared and _so_ angry at her, even as he mopped up the blood and wrapped up her wrist with his gentle hands.

“ _Yeah, Darce_ ,” he says, softer and sadder. “ _He- he’s pretty messed up right now- he’s not in a good place, but I promise you Darcy_ \- I promise you- _I will find him, and I will bring him back; for you, doll. For both of us_.”

“Hydra,” she breathes, mouth dry. She’s certain there are tears in her eyes. “He was that guy on the news, right? The one they’re saying killed Fury? He- he _attacked you_.” She covers her mouth with a shaking hand. “I saw the footage, Steve. He tried to _kill you!_ ”

“ _He didn’t know who I was, Darcy. He didn’t even know his own name_.”

“Oh God-”

“ _But he_ saved me _. Up on the Helicarrier, he recognised me, right at the end. Pulled me out of the water_ -”

“Wait, what? Steve, were you on one of those helicarriers? As they were _falling_? Oh my God, what the _hell_ were you doing on them, is this why you're hurt so bad?"

There’s another lengthy pause on the other side of the line. Darcy knows _exactly_ what Steve is going to try and do- repress and redirect. She scowls at her computer screen, knowing full well where much of his injuries came from now. “ _Steven Grant Rogers_ , you need to stop trying to die a martyr, because so help me God, if one day you manage to succeed, I will recruit that shiny new soulmate of yours and together we will kill you. You’re too important. Too good to die for this world.”

Her eyes are trained on the Hydra files she still has up. Never before has she thought it so strongly.

“ _Darcy_ -” Steve breathes. He sounds like he’s in pain. He probably is. “ _He’d have loved you_.”

She swallows back tears of her own and stares down at her keyboard, as though it holds the answers to the universe within. “And you think he’d not now?” she winces once the words are out; she’d meant for them to sound joking, but they only come across as teary and vulnerable.

“ _I don’t know_ ,” Steve sighs. “ _Buck’s… he’s messed up. Even if he did, I don’t know if you should_ -”

“Do you think me some delicate flower?” she snaps, anger flaring up in her chest- hot and unwanted. “Too pure and naïve to be near men like him?”

“ _No_ ,” he sighs again. He sounds tired and careworn.

“He’s my _soulmate_ , Steve. I want to be there for him, in whatever capacity he’ll take me. I- I won’t let him go again.”

_I can’t._

He’s quiet for a long moment, and all Darcy hears is his soft and steady breathing. She wonders what he’s doing- if he’s in pain. “ _The martyr thing goes both ways, you know. You can’t sacrifice yourself for him, Darce. He’ll never be the man he used to be_.”

“I never _knew_ the man he used to be.”

His breathing hitches. “ _I… yeah_ ,” he murmurs, clearly backing off. “ _Yeah, I’m sorry_.”

Darcy wishes fiercely that Steve were back in the Tower, so he could wrap his tree-trunk arms around her and she could take comfort in the smell of peppermint and orange-scented laundry detergent. He’s been gone for months, and she misses him something fierce.

“When are you coming home, Steve?”

“ _I don’t know…”_ he sighs heavily. “ _The hospital won’t release me until the day after tomorrow. And then there’s Fury’s funeral to attend the day after… Tony’ll probably send someone over to pick us up, but I don’t know if I’ll even go there. With Shield gone there’s so much to do._ ” He coughs wetly, and Darcy reminds herself that he’s still badly injured. A little part of her warms to know that she’s one of the first people he thought to call. “ _I need to weed out what’s left of Hydra before it can get a good foothold again, and Bucky is going to need help. I need… to bring him home._ ”

Darcy’s nodding, though she knows the gesture is lost on him. There’s an idea forming in her head- bright and hopeful and utterly impossible to ignore.

She could do it.

Hell, she could even be of use to him; Darcy’s a pro at wrestling with data (thanks in part to her time with Jane, and some innate talent she has for identifying patterns) and she’s a pretty good driver, _and_ Natasha, Clint and Thor had taken to teaching her how to defend herself ever since she moved into the Tower with Jane. Sure she’s no Black Widow, but she can hold her own fairly well, and she’s aces with a taser or three. Even better if they’re Tony Stark make.

“Come home, Steve,” she murmurs, already pulling up files on Hydra’s documented safehouses and bases and fully aware that he won’t be. “As soon as you can.”

He sighs. “ _I will, Darce_.” There’s a sound from over the line- a soft clatter of something. Steve grunts. “ _I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you soon_.”

“Bye Steve-” she tries, but he’s already hung up. Darcy sighs heavily and leans back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling as though it could tell her the answers to life’s great conundrums.

“If I may, Miss Lewis?” Jarvis asks some time later, voice turned down low in the quiet lab. Darcy hums and opens her eyes. She hadn’t even realised they were closed.

“Yeah, J?”

 “You have not slept for almost forty-five hours. May I suggest some sleep before Captain Rogers returns?”

She sits up, groaning at the pain of too-tense muscles. “I thought sleepy head protocols only covered the scientists.”

“Forgive me, but I took the liberty of extending them to you and Miss Potts.”

She smiles softly at the amusement in his voice. “Probably a good idea.”

“I have been known to have them.”

She huffs a laugh and stands up. Her vertebrae pop in several places. “Could you set my alarm to seven?”

“Ten am,” Jarvis barters. “Eight hours sleep is optimum.”

“Eight,” she counters.

“Nine am.”

She rolls her eyes. “Eight-thirty, and a giant pot of coffee.”

“Very well, Miss Lewis.” If Darcy didn’t know any better, she’d say the AI is sighing. She smiles softly as she walks out of the lab and down the hall to the elevator. “I shall see to it that your coffee is untouched for when you wake.”

“Thanks, J.”

“Of course, Miss Lewis.”

“And Jarvis,” the doors close behind her and the elevator speeds upwards, “could you do me a favour and flag every file from the Shield dump that you suspect is a Hydra affiliated location? Sorted according to level of importance and category of the base- safe house, research facility, weapons facility, storage, manned or unmanned, and other.”

“Understood, Miss Lewis. I will have the files ready for you when you wake.”

She stumbles down the hall and through the door to her shared apartment. “Thank-you. Wake me if there are any new developments.”

“Noted, Miss Lewis.” Jarvis says. Darcy wonders if he’ll heed that last order- she’s not exactly an Avenger, and above all, Tony has top priority.

She finds, as she flops down onto her bed and kicks off her shoes, she can’t actually bring herself to care.

She’s asleep within the minute, above the covers and still fully dressed.


	2. The Argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy ends up in DC and Steve is Not Pleased.

Getting into the hospital to actually _see_ Steve turns out to be the hardest part of her plan. Getting time off from Jane and convincing Stark that joining Steve is a great idea ended up being easy- especially when she pulled out the guilt card. Tony even offered her a car by the end of it, and a tablet with a direct link to Jarvis, plus a bag in the trunk _full_ of goodies for Steve and his new beau.

In hindsight, she should have seen it coming and planned accordingly; Hydra _had_ just tried to kill him, after all. Instead, she spends close to twenty minutes arguing with a security guard that she has every right to see him (they won’t even let her into the ward, let along his room), before finally biting the bullet and just calling his new number.

An unfamiliar man picks up. “ _Hello?_ ”

Darcy bites her lip, leaning against the wall of the hospital. “Who is this?”

A long pause. “ _I think you’ve got this whole answering the phone thing wrong, lady._ ”

Her lips twitch against her will. “You’re Sam, aren’t you? The guy with the wings?”

An angry growl, “ _Are you a reporter? How did you get this number? If you don’t tell me who you are in the next ten seconds, I’m hanging up._ ”

She huffs in frustration. Stupid Steve and his protective friends. “Bro, did you even look at the caller ID? I’ll bet you five bucks it says Darcy. I’m Steve’s friend.”

Another pause as he presumably checks the phone. “ _Darcy, huh?_ ” he asks, sheepish now.

“That would be me,” she says with a forced cheerfulness. Over the line, she hears a muffled ‘ _is that Darcy?_ ’

She smiles for real. “I guess Steve’s awake.”

“ _What makes you think he was sleeping?_ ” Sam growls, on edge again. She rolls her eyes even as she hears Steve tell Sam to give him the phone.

“You picked up. Steve’s surprisingly good at answering his phone; the only reason he’d be unavailable would be because someone make his stupid, reckless ass stay in bed so he could actually get some sleep.”

Sam huffs a laugh. “ _Well… you_ sound _like her._ ”

“ _Sam, gimme the phone!_ ”

She raises an eyebrow in amusement. “He talk about me, has he?”

“… _Only the embarrassing stuff._ ”

Darcy snorts and looks up at the greying sky. She’s tired still, she realises. Somehow the purpose of finding Steve had staved off the worst of her fatigue, but now that she’s in DC she’s crashing. “I’ve heard things about you too, Sam. But I don’t think they should be talked about out in public.”

Sam is quiet, but she can hear the sounds of a struggle on the other side of the line, and then a ‘ _sit the hell back in your bed, Rogers. Don’t be an asshole; Darcy and I are having a conversation here_.’

She laughs aloud at that. “Is that what we’re having?”

“ _The Golden Oldies’ Soulmates? What else would it be?_ ”

Darcy can’t help but flinch, and even though she knows Sam can’t see her, she suspects he knows he’s put his foot in it. He sighs heavily. “ _He may have mentioned…_ ”

“My soulmate,” she finishes tightly. “Well, he wasn’t lying.” Sam sighs again.

“ _Sorry, I-_ ”

“It’s fine,” Darcy breathes in deeply, “old news to me by now.” She pushes down the discomfort. She doesn’t want to sour her first conversation with Steve’s soulmate any more than it has already. “Could you put Steve on, please?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Sam sounds far less exuberant than before and Darcy can’t help but feel bad. “ _Yeah_ , _okay_.” There’s the muffled sound of hands fumbling with the phone as it’s handed over to Steve.

“ _Darcy? What’s wrong? Are you okay?_ ” She can’t help but smile at the greeting. Trust Steve- shot who knows how many time and bed bound for the near future- to ask how she is.

God, but it’s good to hear his voice again.

She coughs awkwardly. “I’m fine, Steve. How you doing?”

“ _Good. They’re talking about releasing me tomorrow_.”

And bless him, but he sounds so excited that she can’t help but smile again. The beautiful, reckless asshole. “That’s great. Listen, could you do me a favour and tell the goons outside your room to let me in? I think they think I’m a Captain America groupie.”

There is a long and weighted silence on the other side of the line.

“ _Darcy_ …” Steve says slowly and carefully. “ _Why are you in DC?_ ”

She cringes into the wall, but keeps her voice strong and steady, “I’m coming with you on your inevitable road trip. I’m here to help.”

“ _Darcy, no_.”

She rests a heated cheek against the cool brick and closes her burning eyes. “Can we have this conversation in your room, please?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” he growls, and oh, God, he sounds real mad, “ _I think it would be best if we could continue this conversation face-to-face._ ” He hangs up, and Darcy cringes at the dial tone. She’s definitely feeling like this wasn’t as good an idea as she first thought, but the defiant part of her refuses to back down.

She slinks back inside and finds one of the security guards she’d argued with waiting for her at reception.

“Miss Lewis,” he greets her, just this side of surly, and she shows him her ID without complaint when he asks for it. She follows him silently, and can’t shake the thought that she’s walking to her execution. She straightens her back, the tilt of her chin defiant; she is strong. She can weather a soldier’s anger.

Steve and Sam are waiting for her in his room, Steve firmly ensconced in his bed by a hand on his shoulder. His arms are tightly crossed and the expression on his bruised and battered face is an awful mix between furious and disappointed. Darcy swallows thickly at the sight.

“Hey,” she says, and offers him a smile that hopefully looks stronger than it feels.

“Darcy,” he growls as soon as the door shuts behind her. The syllables are sharp and clipped, as though holding back his anger by sheer force of will. He probably is. “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing here?”

She flinches. Steve doesn’t curse often, and when he does it’s usually reserved for occasions that truly merit them. The fingers on his shoulder tighten, and Darcy takes a moment to observe her friend’s new soulmate. He’s very handsome, with warm brown eyes and an expressive face that’s currently trying very hard to remain passive, but it’s clear he’s not overly impressed with the whole situation.

She smiles anyway and steps forward to offer him her hand, extended over Steve’s bed as though he’s not there. “It’s nice to meet you Sam.”

His hand is warm and dry when he clasps hers, and for all the tenseness of the situation, his answering is smile is broad and without judgement. “You too. Shame it couldn’t be under better circumstances.”

“ _Darcy_ ,” Steve growls, unhappy with being ignored and she steels herself. “Explain.”

She levels him with a cool gaze. “I know you’re not going back to the Tower.”

He pokes at the inside of his cheek and uncrosses his arms, but doesn’t bother to reassure her otherwise. His eyes are steely. “You know I can’t just let Hydra go.”

Darcy hopes the look she gives him communicates perfectly what she thinks of that statement. “I know full well how incapable you are of backing down from a fight. And in this case, I don’t want you to. So… I’m here to offer you my services.”

“No.”

Her eyes narrow dangerously and she stares him down. “Steven Grant Rogers, you will listen to what I have to say. I know you’re going to go after Hydra and tear them to pieces if you can. Which is fine and fucking dandy with me. But you’re _not_ going to be hunting for them alone. No, Steve- shut up,” she says sharply before he can interrupt. “I can be useful to you; I may not be a combatant, but I can at least defend myself from a low level threat. I’m a top notch hacker, I’m excellent at data mining and code-breaking; I can help you find any Hydra base you want. _And_ ,” her smile is vicious, “you know full well how good a driver I am.”

Steve pales a little at that. Sam raises an eyebrow.

She pats at the satchel slung across her body. “I have a direct, secure link to Jarvis and all the data collected from the Shield dump. We’ve already got a pretty detailed list of known Hydra bases in North America and Europe and if you can get us into a Hydra dedicated server, we can give you far more intel than you could have managed on your own.”

“Darcy-”

“I’m not asking you to take me onto Hydra bases with you, Steve. I’m fully aware that I’d only be a liability to you. Think of me as your Shield handler- I give you the intel, you do the wet work.”

“I-”

“Steve, _shut up_ ,” she hisses at him. “I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to find him. And know this, Steve. If you refuse my help, then I’m looking for him on my own. And _when_ I find him, I’ll offer him the same services I’m offering you right now. I’m a big girl. I can handle myself plenty well.”

His jaw clenches, hands squeezing so tightly she’s surprised the bones aren’t breaking. _It’s time to pull out the trump card._

She glances away, and lets her eyes go shiny and wet-looking, like she’s about to cry. “I can’t let Hydra get away with this,” she breathes and bites at her lip. “And I can’t just sit around while everyone else hunts them down.” She looks up at him from under her lashes, just like Natasha taught her. “I can’t lose him again, Steve. I _can’t_.”

The hard lines of his face soften, the fight leaving him just enough for Darcy to use to her advantage. “Darcy, you can’t just drop everything for this.”

“Says who?” she scoffs. “Why the hell not, Steve? Isn’t that _exactly_ what you’re about to do?” She pulls herself up to her full- if unimpressive height. “And you’re inevitably going to get yourself hurt, so yes Steve, I can just drop everything for this. Even if my- even if _he_ wasn’t on the line, I would still want to do this. You’re my best friend. I won’t let you run headlong into the mouth of a monster alone.”

He crosses his arms again, face turning surly and Darcy knows she’s won. “I wouldn’t be alone.  I’d have Sam.”

She levels him with a hard stare. “Two men against Hydra- one a super-soldier or not- is as good as going in alone, and you know it.”

Sam shifts uncomfortably. He at least, appears to have a head of reason on him. “She’s right, you know,” he says quietly and Darcy fights to keep her face impassive. “Without my wings I’m just a soldier. Nothin’ special about me.”

Steve’s head swivels to give him a disbelieving stare. “ _Sam,_ ” he breathes, and there’s something close to adoration in his eyes, mixed in with the sadness and the anger. Sam puts his hands up, placating.

“Hey man, doesn’t mean I’m not a _good_ soldier. But I’m no super-soldier. Just another guy with a gun.” He nods at Darcy. “And if it were me in your position? If it were Riley I was looking for? I’d take the help where I can get it.”

“She doesn’t know how to fight, Sam!” he turns on her, “What if Hydra comes after us, Darcy? This isn’t just going to be some walk in the park; we’re going after _Hydra_. The secret organisation that very nearly killed off millions of people less than forty-eight hours ago! I can’t risk you getting hurt.”

Darcy crosses her arms. “Think I don’t know that? Steve, I was on their kill list! I know full well how serious this is.” She steps in close, eyes narrowed, “And need I remind you, I _lived_ _through_ both the Destroyer in New Mexico _and_ the Dark Elf invasion in Greenwich. And in between those times, I’ve had training from Natasha, Clint _and_ Thor. This may be the major leagues, but it isn’t my first rodeo.

“It’s my decision to make; if I get hurt, it’s because I chose to be in that situation. Just like you… Don’t- don’t take this choice away from me Steve.”

Steve sighs heavily, and like that, all the fight leaves him. He looks so defeated, crumpled into the white sheets of the hospital bed. Darcy’s heart aches at the sight. “How did you even get here, Darcy?”

She smiles softly at him and taps at the satchel again. True to form, there’s an Ironman badge superglued to the front (she’d tried taking it off, to no avail). “Tony.”

Steve offers her an incredulous look. “ _Tony._ Tony let you come along on this? Is he insane?”

Darcy rolls her eyes and sits tentatively in the chair beside his bed. “He was just an ordinary guy before he made himself a suit of armour, you know. Okay- so he was also a genius, but he certainly had no formal combat training. And yet _he’ll_ fight beside you when the time calls for it.” She fiddles with the hem of her blouse. “But… he knows what it’s like to fight for a personal vendetta. I think that’s why he let me leave.”

Steve sighs again, and his hand flops off the bed towards her. Darcy takes it for the peace offering it is and takes it, entwining her fingers between his. The familiar heat of his skin almost brings tears to her eyes- God, she’s missed this man.

“Fine,” he growls, and Darcy’s heart _sings._ “ _Fine._ But Darcy, the first sign of danger and you’re out. I won’t have you endangering yourself any more than is absolutely necessary.” He grins, a little rueful, “Do you have any idea how many people would kill me if something were to happen to you?”

The steely look in his eyes is back, just daring her to argue back. She won’t; she’s got what she wanted. She smiles at him instead and wipes away the beginnings of tears with her free hand. It’s been a harrowing few days. “At least three,” she jokes, “And two of them would electrocute you without a second thought.”

He squeezes at her hand comfortingly. “Yeah, and the other one could probably send me into space. Not exactly interested in getting on their bad sides.”

She laughs wetly. “Thank-you, Steve.”

His smile turns grim. “Don’t thank me yet, Lewis. Someone’s gotta keep your training sharp.”

Darcy bites her lip, holding back her grin. “I can handle it.”

Steve takes her in for a long moment. “Yeah,” he sighs, “I guess you can.”

“Are we done arguing now?”

He rolls his eyes and Sam chuckles behind him. “Yeah, I guess we are.” Darcy sighs in relief, the tension leaving her all in one.

“Good. Then if you don’t mind, I could really do with a hug.”


	3. The Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is not Sam's first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to  
> [cutie-bug](http://cutie-bug.tumblr.com/) and [ladymariianna](http://ladymariianna.tumblr.com/)  
>  for chatting to me while writing this. You guys are a blessing :D

True to their word, the hospital releases Steve the next day with a stern warning to keep away from strenuous activity for at least the next week or so. Steve nods and smiles along to their stern stipulations, as though he’ll actually heed their advice, but Darcy (and Sam) know better.

They stick around at Sam’s place until the next day for Fury’s funeral, and Darcy thanks the gods above that she packed so many dark clothes. She may not have known the late-Director, but she’s not about to turn up to his funeral in jeans and a sweater. Especially when she knows there’ll be at least a few people there from Shield, most of whom are likely well equipped to shoot her on the spot.

The funeral itself is surprisingly low-key. But for the paparazzi foaming at the bit to get through the cemetery gates, there’s not actually many people there at all. Darcy wonders if that’s a reflection of the man, or the fall of his agency.

She doesn’t really know anyone there except Steve and Sam, but Natasha’s presence is a pleasant surprise (that probably shouldn’t have been a surprise). The red of her hair stands out like a sore thumb, even hidden beneath the hat and veil she wears. The picture of a grieving widow.

If she’s surprised to see Darcy, she doesn’t show it.

They pay their respects and when it’s over they hang back, watching the small crowd of men and women in their black clothes and uniforms file away. Natasha joins them, resting a hand in the crook of Darcy’s shoulder.

“You’re a long way from home, птичка.”

She raises a brow at her, before turning to embrace the older woman. She smells like she always does, and Darcy feels relieved that this at least, hasn’t changed. “The same could be said for you.”  

Natasha pulls back, green eyes searching her face. Darcy wonders what she’s looking for. “How are you?”

Ah. The question of the day. It’s not every day one’s soulmate comes back from the dead- certainly not when they were meant to die in 1945. She shrugs and smiles. “Far better than I could be,” she says truthfully and Natasha nods sagely. She bites her lip and glances away; something Steve told her this morning has been bugging her all day. “Did- did you know?”

Natasha is silent for a long time, but when she shakes her head and tells her ‘no’, Darcy believes her.

“Thank-you,” she murmurs, and Natasha nods again. Her eyes slide past Darcy to rest on Steve and Sam, chatting quietly to each other several meters away as if to give them some semblance of privacy.

“You’re going with them.” It’s a statement and not a question.

“Yes,” she answers anyway. “You know what Steve’s like… If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Natasha huffs a laugh. “Like a dog with a bone,” she smirks. She knocks at Darcy’s shoulder with the back of her hand, even as the other one slides down to wrap around the bindings on her wrist. “You remember your training?”

Darcy rolls her eyes and fights the urge to tug her hand out of the woman’s grasp. “How could I forget? I’ve probably still got some bruises from the last time we had a session.”

“Only a few?” Natasha jokes. “Sounds like you need a refresher.”

Darcy pokes her tongue out childishly and Natasha laughs. “Steve already said he’s going to keep my training up. He said it’s ‘cause he’s scared of you and Thor, but really I think he just wants to get back at me for turning up out of the blue.”

The smirk returns. “I suspect it’s a bit of both.” Her arms rise again, pulling Darcy into another hug, tight and warm. Natasha’s always been a surprisingly good hugger, for all her stoic appearance. “Don’t get hurt, птичка,” she murmurs.

Darcy swallows thickly, and nods into the veil of her hat. “I’ll try my hardest.”

“That’s all I ask,” Natasha sighs, and when she pulls away she presses a kiss to her forehead, just like Darcy’s mother used to do when she was little. Her heart swells at the gesture. “I pray you find what you’re looking for,” the Widow whispers, “but don’t let him drag you down.”

Darcy nods stiffly, and Natasha moves away from her with one last squeeze of her shoulder. She stares dumbly at the tree that she must have moved them behind, conveniently blocking the paparazzi’s line of sight.

“Hey,” Sam says suddenly, appearing on her left. Darcy starts, hand reaching for the taser in her satchel before she even realises what she doing. Sam smiles at her sheepishly. “You okay?”

She laughs uneasily and scratches at the back of her head. Natasha’s talking to Steve now, she notices when she glances behind them. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just got a little spacey there for a minute.”

Darcy kicks at the ground with a scuffed sneaker. It’s probably not her place to ask, but like anything she does in life, she carries on anyway. “Sam?”

“Mm?”

“Do you mind if I ask… why are you here, Sam? From the way I hear it, you and Steve barely know each other. Soulmates or not, it’s a pretty big leap of faith to choose to suddenly go on a road trip of justice with the guy.”

He levels her with a flat look, and there’s something in his gaze that tells Darcy that he can see straight into her soul. It’s a very humbling feeling. “Well, it’s the same for you, isn’t it?”

Darcy opens her mouth to argue, but Sam waves it away with a flap of his hand. “We both know the real reason you’re here isn’t because of Steve.” There’s no judgement in his voice.

She smiles sheepishly and shrugs. “I am here to help Steve, but when you put it like that, then I guess yeah. Yeah, I’ve got ulterior motives. I- when I met him… I knew he was going to die, and I… ran away, as soon as the opportunity arose. I’d barely spoken to him for twenty minutes… I won’t let go of him again.”

Sam sighs heavily, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Steve’s not my first,” he confesses. Darcy looks up at him sharply. Behind them, Natasha and Steve are talking intensely in hushed voices. “My wingman- Riley.”

Darcy swallows nervously. She has a strong feeling she knows exactly where this is going. Sam gives her a sad smile. “An RPG on tour. Watched him fall outta the sky; nothing I could do but watch.”

She wants to hug him, but decides against it; they don’t know each other nearly well enough for that. “I’m sorry,” she says, and wishes the words don’t come across as so empty.

Sam just shrugs. “So I get it. It’s why I’m here, too. I already lost one; I’m not losing this one too.”

“They’re our second chances.”

He nods slowly, smiling at her all the while. “Yeah.”

Steve joins them then, with a smile on his face like he knows what they’ve been talking about. Sam tilts his head, “We good?”

 “We’re good.” Steve nods and claps them both on the shoulders. “We should go, before the security guards let the paparazzi in here.”

Behind him, Darcy watches Natasha’s retreating form, weaving through the grave stones before disappearing behind the outstretched wings of an angel.

\--

By the time they get back to Sam’s, it’s late afternoon. Sam and Steve go through the house room by room before they let Darcy in, too on edge after Shield’s collapse to do anything less. Darcy mostly lives in hope that it’s still too soon after the Triskelion for Hydra to gather its troops and find them, but she’s not going to complain that they’re actually concerned about their safety.

Steve retreats to the bathroom and Darcy dumps her bag on the kitchen table, sighing in relief when she all but collapses into her chair. It hasn’t exactly been a long day, but there’s been a lot of standing in one place during Fury’s funeral. Sam stands in front of the fridge, staring into it with a disappointed look on his face, and Darcy is reminded that he’s lived the life of a bachelor up until three days ago.

“Nothing to eat?” she asks, leaning back in the chair- it creaks dangerously and Darcy thinks better of it. An Ikea man; what a tragedy.

“Unless you want…” he pulls out his veggie draw, and the frown grows more pronounced, “Onions and rice… no.”

Darcy screws up her face in distaste. _Bachelors_ ; half the men in the tower are the same (and, almost surprisingly until one considered her upbringing, Natasha). “You got any take out menus other than pizza up there?”

Sam gives her a flat look. “I can’t cook but I’m not a slob, Lewis.”

She smiles at him sweetly and holds her hand out expectantly. He’s not lying about that, at least- his place is neat and tidy, with all the signs of a man who spent several years in the armed forces. Sam rolls his eyes at her and plucks three menus from his fridge. Darcy chooses the Thai place- they’re always good for veggies and they offer delivery- and orders all the circled items on the menu, and another four for good measure; she knows exactly how much Steve can eat.

Steve emerges from the shower just in time for food, rubbing at his hair with a towel. Sam’s eyes track him as he retreats to the spare bedroom (Steve had tried to palm it off to Darcy, but she’d vetoed the idea with a pointed poke at his stomach) and Darcy watches the super-soldier in suspicion- his lips twitch just the faintest amount before he disappears into the room. The sneak.

“He’s doing that on purpose,” she complains. Sam shrugs, pulling a ‘so what’ face.

“Are you really gonna whinge about the view?”

Darcy tilts her hand in a so-so fashion. “He’s not exactly mine to gawp at, so yes. Now wipe away your drool and grab us some plates. You got chopsticks?”

Sam huffs, muttering a soft, “Not drooling,” to himself as he pulls out three plates from the cupboard above the sink. “They’re in the cutlery drawer.”

By the time Steve comes out again, looking fresher than her has all day, the table is set and the kitchen smells like curry and rice. Steve eyes the dishes warily- he’s still getting used to the 21st century’s fondness for chili. “Smells good,” he says slowly.

Darcy rolls her eyes. “They’re all mild, you pleb.”

He sighs in relief and sits down with them. Darcy offers him a whole tub of rice which he promptly dumps on his plate. Sam’s eyes widen in surprise and she shrugs. “You think a build like that comes cheap?”

He bites his lip in amusement, “Well I mean, if you only feed him rice....”

Steve helps himself to a generous portion of massaman curry. “I’m right here, you two.” Darcy winks at him cheekily and he huffs loudly. She passes him the tub of red curry and Sam seems to shake away his surprise and get on with serving himself.  

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” she asks after their plates are filled with food. “Did you read through the information I gave you?”

Steve’s already shovelling food into his mouth and he shrugs, taking a moment to swallow before talking. “Natasha says Fury wants to meet us tomorrow.”

Darcy stares at him for a long moment. “Are you telling me,” she say slowly, “that I stood around awkwardly for half a day at the funeral of a guy who’s not even dead?”

His eyes shift away and the chopsticks in his hand twitch. “Uh… surprise?”

Darcy rubs at her face with her spare hand. “Spies.” Is all she says, shaking her head in mock disgust. Sam gives her a commiserating smile.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure he’s the only other dead guy who’s not dead.”

“It doesn’t,” she replies, biting back a grin, “but thanks anyway.”

Steve hums. “I was thinking it’d be best if just Sam and I went, though,” he says carefully. “I don’t… I don’t want you implicated in all of this any more than you need to.”

Darcy nods in agreeance. “That’s probably for the best.” It’s not like she wants it widely known that she’s the soulmate of… of the Winter Soldier. “I can stick around here and sort through more Shield files.”

“Great,” he replies and shovels another load of food into his mouth. Sam hides his amusement behind a cough. “Then we’ll scat, I guess.”

 “Where to?”

Steve swallows his food, looking thoughtful. “I think… it’s probably best to start close to home, get them while their still reeling from Pierce’s death. Wipe out as many as we’re able- tip off the FBI and the CIA with the rest.”

Darcy nods, pulling out her phone to scroll through the list of bases she and Jarvis had compiled.

Sam makes an annoyed sound at the back of his throat. “Okay, new rule” he growls, and reaches over to put a hand over hers, hiding her phone from view. “No work talk at the table. I’m gonna spend the next who knows how long with you losers; you can go at least an hour a day without talking about ‘the Plan’.”

Steve grins. “Sorry Sam.”

Darcy puts the phone away sheepishly. “Sorry.”

He nods decisively at their apologies. “Good. Now shut up and eat you dinner.”

They eat in a comfortably silence, and when Darcy goes to bed that night, she does so with a sense of purpose settling in her mind, more at peace with herself than she’s felt in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> птичка = Little Bird/Birdie


	4. The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy demonstrates her driving skills to her BFFs new soulmate.

Steve and Sam are back from their meeting with Fury before Darcy even bothers to get up (Sam’s couch is surprisingly comfortable) and when she emerges- hair a mess and clothes crumpled- the pair of them are disgustingly bright eyed and _awake_. She pouts grumpily at Steve, but takes the offered coffee from him gratefully, and sits down at the table as they putter around the kitchen- Sam’s whipping up what looks like pancakes.

As the smell of melted butter and cooking batter fills the room, Darcy suddenly realises there’s a manila folder sitting on the table in front of her. She squints at the front, trying to make out what it says, but it’s all in Cyrillic- even the hand-writing. All she can make out is the large ‘No.17’ written beside its illegible title. She pulls it towards her, curious.

“What’s this?” she asks, and opens the file.

Steve makes an alarmed sound, but it’s too late. Darcy stares down at the large picture of the Winter Soldier in cryosleep and the little thumbnail of James B. Barnes paper clipped to the bottom of it in shock.

Her hands tremble. The coffee in her empty stomach suddenly feels like it’s about to come back up. She swallows and carefully puts her half-full cup of coffee down.

“Well,” is all she can bring herself to say. Steve rests a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry- I should have warned you.”

Her eyes skim over the writing, but it’s all in Cyrillic. She closes the file and pushes it away. “It’s fine. It’s okay- _it’s fine._ ”

It’s not, but neither men seem willing to challenge her.

Darcy closes her eyes and breathes in deep, searching for the sense of purpose she’d gone to sleep with last night. It comes to her slowly, hidden beneath the waves of horror at _what Hydra’s done_.

When she breathes out, she feels calm and settled. The shaking in her hands has stopped and she blindly reaches for her coffee to take a long, deep drink. It burns all the way down, but the pain is far better than the churning sensation in her gut and the tightening around her throat, as though she’s about to throw up.

When she opens her eyes, Steve and Sam are watching her as though she’s a bomb about to go off.

“You okay?” Sam asks.

Darcy nods slowly, and points at the pan behind him with her free hand. “I’m fine. The pancakes are burning.”

Sam curses and pulls the frying pan off the heat. Darcy offers Steve a shaky smile and he squeezes her shoulder in comfort. “Sorry.”

She waves him off. “It’s alright- just wasn’t expecting to see it. Did Fury give that to you?”

He shakes his head and sits down beside her, tapping at her feet with his own a little tentatively. Darcy smiles at him and taps them back. “Natasha gave it to me. Don’t ask me how she managed to get a hold of it so quickly; I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.”

Darcy hums and watches Sam toss out the burnt remains of the pancake and pour in the batter for another one. “That’s likely for the best.” He smirks and Darcy leans back into her seat. “So what did Fury want?”

Sam snorts but Steve just shrugs. “I think he just wanted to say goodbye. Asked us if we wanted to go to Europe with him- smoke out Hydra over there… but I’m pretty sure he knew exactly what we’re planning on doing.”

“Well,” Sam grins, leaning against the stove, “it’s not like it’s not a surprising move. Captain America’s shtick has always been to salt and burn as much of Hydra as he can.”

Steve smiles at his soulmate and sips at his glass of orange juice. Sam turns back to the stove and the kitchen settles into a companionable silence, the only sounds to be heard are Sam’s soft humming and the sizzle of hot butter.

 

* * *

 

“Remind me again, _why_ are we letting you drive?”

Darcy grins into the rear-vision mirror. “Because _someone_ got shot four days ago, and Sam lost at paper scissors rock.”

Sam glares at her, hand firmly gripping at the handle on the roof. “And I am _seriously_ regretting this loss.”

Darcy laughs and slips in between two cars, giving the guy behind her a little wave as she does. “You guys are being drama queens; I’m a fantastic driver.”

“Girl, fantastic is _not_ the word I’d use.”

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Steve groans, slouching down into the front seat as far as his long legs will allow. She giggles and turns up the radio- the sound keeps hazing out, but it’ll be good for a little while yet.

“By the by, Sam,” she says before swerving into the next lane. Sam yelps but Steve only closes his eyes. “Tony said he’ll probably be able to whip you up a new pair of wings in about a week.”

Sam sits up a little straighter in his seat. “For real?” he gapes at her and Darcy giggles again at the sight through her mirror. “And you didn’t think to tell me this earlier?”

She shrugs, settling back into her seat; it’s a long drive to upstate New York and their first Hydra base. “Tony texted me this morning. I uh- kind of forgot to mention it.”

He shakes his head, eyes still wide in surprise. “Tony _Stark_ is making me a new pair of wings.”

“He does that.”

“Don’t give him free reign to decorate,” Steve grunts, eyes still closed. Darcy hopes he’s going to try and get some more sleep on the drive. Super-soldier or not, he’s still got a gut wound and then some to heal. “He’ll probably make it red and gold to match.”

“Man,” Sam smirks with a disbelieving shake of his head, “I wouldn’t even _care_. He’s makin’ me _wings._ He can cover them in glitter and have them spout rainbow smoke for all I care.”

“Yeah…” Steve laughs softly, “Don’t go giving him ideas, please.”

Darcy nods sagely and frowns at the radio signal that’s finally decided to go kaput. She reaches for the back seat, hand searching for her satchel. Sam makes a noise of alarm. “Jesus, Lewis! Would you keep your eyes on the goddamn road!”

“Relax Wilson. I’ve driven in way worse traffic than this. I’ll have you know I haven’t had an accident once.”

“You hit Thor,” Steve reminds her.

“You hit _Thor_?”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “ _Technically_ , I was the one who was driving, yes. But Jane wrenched the wheel and he turned up in the middle of a lightning storm! That was a hundred percent _not_ my fault.”

Sam moans and puts his face in his hands. “Four hours of this. _God_ , we’re all going to die.”

“You should have seen her on the defensive driving course.”

Sam moans in distress again. Darcy grins. “Remind me again to thank Clint for that present.”

“She drove like a bat outta hell. I’ve never seen a guy so terrified before- said in his thirty years of experience, he’d never been in the car who was actually insane.”

“Natasha thought it was funny.”

“Natasha thinks a lot of things that aren’t funny are funny.”

“True,” Darcy concedes. “She is a surprisingly huge troll.”

“What?” Sam scoffs. “Widow? Nah man, no way. I call bullshit.”

Darcy and Steve laugh a little hysterically almost in unison. “One day, he’ll learn.” Darcy snickers. They both know what the Avengers are all really like. Tony the genius insomniac; Bruce, the huge and disgustingly enthusiastic dork; Thor, lover of cat videos and Actual Human Disaster Clint Barton™.

“I’m worried that day will break him,” Steve jokes. Sam’s eyes narrow, eyes jumping between the pair of them.

“Oh, I see how it is,” he growls, eyes sparkling with poorly-hidden amusement. “Tryna haze the new guy, huh? You think you’re better than me, Lewis? Think I couldn’t take you?”

She laughs, loud and strong and straight from the gut. “Sam, honey. I _know_ I’m better than you. Now be a dear and hand me my iPod. It’s about time we started listening to some real music.”

From the passenger seat, Steve groans and leans a little bit further into the upholstery.

 

* * *

 

‘Frank’s Off the Interstate’ is just outside of Fulton; a little hole in the wall motel where the walls are mostly unstained and there’s only the faint smell of cigarettes saturating the sofa. Steve picks it mostly in the hopes that the owners are less likely to ask questions about their clearly unrelated trio, the suspicious amount of gear they haul out of the trunk, or the fact that even with that stupid cap of his, that jawline is still clearly recognisable (to Darcy at least).

They’re fortunate enough to nab a room with two bedrooms, though Steve splutters a little when he realises both the rooms look like they’ve got two double beds. Darcy rolls her eyes in exasperation.

“For Thor’s sake, Steve. I don’t care,” she growls at him. Darcy knows full well the guy has no qualms with bunking with another guy- he was in the _Army_ , after all- but bring a woman into the situation and his 1940s sensibilities have a tendency to come out in full force. “Share a bed with him- it’s not like you’re allowed to have any strenuous activity right now.”

“But- Sam-”

“I’m pretty sure Sam _isn’t_ going to complain.” She points to him- sure enough, Sam’s biting back a grin. Steve sends his soulmate a pleading glance that Darcy really doesn’t see the point of. If she wasn’t with them, she doesn’t doubt for a second that they’d be sharing a bed.

“Don’t look at me, man,” he smirks. “No complaining here.”

Darcy nods decisively. “Thank-you, Sam, for being the voice of reason.” She pauses at the kitchenette to drop her empty water bottle in the sink and sends the pair of them a lecherous smile. “Of course, if you really wanted, I can always bunk up with _Sam_.” Steve glares at her in exasperation. Darcy likes to think in moments like these that she is a very good friend. It’s probably not true.  

“No dice, Lewis,” he growls and ah- _there’s_ the possessive little shit she knows. You’re welcome, Sam. “You’re like a goddamn octopus.” He stares at his soulmate with wide, pleading eyes. “She gets _grabby_.”

The smile she sends the pair of them is more than enough to communicate her unspoken ‘I know’.

Sam’s eyes flick between the two of them. “Just gonna skip over _why_ you’d know that, but yeah… I think I’d rather sleep with Rogers- y’know, my _actual_ soulmate- thanks.”

Darcy grins at the pair of them. “Wonderful!” she crows cheerfully, and hefts the strap of her bag a little higher up her shoulder. “I give the pair of you full, blanket permission to have as much nookie as you want, so long as I _can’t hear it_.”

Steve gapes at her, suddenly aware he’s been played. His face turns beet red, but Sam is grinning like a loon and Darcy just _knows_ the pair of them are going to be the best of friends. “Thanks for the blessing, Lewis,” he drawls. “I’m sure we’ll put real good use to it.”

“Wh- _Sam!_ ”

 Darcy pulls a face at the pair of them in disgust and turns away.

“Whatever, bro! Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to have a nap before dinner. Take-out menus are in the folder next to the tv.”

With that she retreats to her room, dumping her satchel unceremoniously at the foot of the bed and flopping onto the cheap mattress with little care for any possible smells (it’s actually not that bad- only the faint undercurrent of mould, like the sheets have been left in the washing machine for too long). She falls asleep to the faint sounds of Sam and Steve moving gear around the rooms and the soft hum of laughter.

 

* * *

 

Despite Steve and his desire to hit up the base as soon as possible (surprising absolutely no one), Darcy and Sam manage to convince him to postponing the raid until the next night.

“It’s our first Hydra hunt,” Sam reasons, exasperation written all over his face.

“You were just shot,” Darcy nags. Steve sets his jaw mulishly.

The two of them turn out to be a formidable team of reason and sanity- much to Steve’s chagrin, and he resigns with all the grace of a freshly showered cat. The three of them spend the following day going through Shield and Hydra files, planning their route of attack carefully.

Their target is a safehouse/bunker, hidden out on one of the farms and far off the beaten track, out of sight from any locals. From what they can tell, the place is usually unmanned, but with the fall of Shield, Steve is gunning for it being filled with Hydra operatives on the run. In the scale of things, it’s big enough to merit them checking out, but not large enough to hold more than two men can handle. Darcy hands him a flash drive (a gift from Stark); it will provide her with an in on any of their closed networks and save any and all data that she wants.

The planning goes well and in the late afternoon, when the sun sits low on the horizon, Darcy sends out a drone (also a gift from Tony). They sit hunched around the screen of her tablet, watching as the scenery zips past at speed.

The safehouse itself is a double storey brick home that _looks_ to be in grave disrepair. Gutters hang half-broken from the roof, with broken windows boarded up with plywood. The broken and empty carcasses of cars lie around the house in the perfect picture of the old, hoarding farmer. Darcy would know; her grandparents’ place is exactly the same.

Steve directs her around the site and it becomes increasingly clear that the place is not as abandoned as it seems. There are obvious markings in the grass between the dangerously leaning barn and the house, surveillance cameras hidden all around the property (which she’d avoid if she were using anything other than Stark-made technology) and the aerial on top of the grimy house looks far too pristine to match the surrounding décor.

He asks quietly if she can get inside the barn and she complies, guiding the drone inside with fingers that remain blissfully tremor-free. The tension in her gut ratchets higher as the drone continues on undetected- the anticipation and nervousness of the impending mission has been growing all day- but she’s determined not to show it. Inside the shed are several cars- of various makes and models and so _obviously_ getaway cars. Darcy doesn’t bother hiding her grin when she spots the old mini, hidden right up the back.

Sam and Steve are quiet as they take in the space, searching the feed with experienced eyes.

“How many?” she asks.

Steve’s gaze lingers on the black SUV parked right up the front. There’s still a Shield symbol on its side. “From the cars? At least five; wouldn’t be surprised if there are more- probably closer to ten.”

Sam lets out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of Hydra operatives for one itty bitty safehouse. Don’t care how big the bunker is; tensions must be pretty high.”

“What’s wrong, Wilson?” Steve taunts with an obvious side-eye. “Not up for the challenge?”

Sam sends his soulmate a flat, unimpressed look that makes Darcy grin. “This how it’s gonna be, Rogers?”

“This is how it’s gonna be.”

Sam shakes his head in mock disgust and leans back in his chair. “How the rest of the world never knew that Captain America is really just a shit-stirring little punk is beyond me.”

Something flashes in Steve’s eyes for a moment, and there’s a hint of tightness to his easy smile. Darcy wonders for a moment what it is, before she’s distracted by the sensors picking up a small plume of smoke. She takes the drone in a little closer, keeping to the rafters on the off chance that Tony’s ego proves itself to be bigger than his buck.

There’s a man leaning against the bumper of an old SUV, cigarette smoke rising from his hand. Stray beams of the late afternoon light catch upon the pale blonde of his hair like a halo. She zooms in and Jarvis’ face-recognition software kicks in.

“Vogel,” Steve breathes, even as the name _Mattis Vogel_ pops up on the screen. Darcy sends him a querulous look and he clenches his jaw. “He was part of STRIKE. I worked with him a few times.”

Sam rests a hand on his shoulder in comfort and Darcy turns back to her tablet. She doesn’t want to see that look of resigned disappointment on his face any more than she has to. “You think he’s the only one?”

“Here? No way of telling for sure,” he murmurs, leaning in close to her screen as though he can discern all his secrets. “I know there were about eight STRIKE members with Hydra loyalties who are still unaccounted for though… Probably best if we go in carefully.”

Sam raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “And you weren’t going to otherwise?”

“You know what I mean,” Steve grumbles, pulling a face at his soulmate. “We’ve got this.”

“Oh, I _know_ we’ve got this- I just need to know if I’m gonna have to save your ass before the night’s out or not.”

Darcy hums at their playful bickering and checks the time- they’ll want to leave soon; the safehouse is about an hour out and she knows they’ll want to do their own recon before storming it. “You’d best start getting ready,” she tells them.

They stand- almost in unison- and Steve claps a large hand over her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Thanks Darce.”

She shoots him a smile and turns back to her feed. Her leg starts tapping in nervous energy as she draws the drone up a little higher in the barn, carefully setting it down on a crossbeam, where it’ll stay until Steve and Sam arrive.

“Go and kick some Hydra ass,” she murmurs, and sets Jarvis on monitor duty of the drone feed.

Steve’s answering grin is wide and grim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know about 5 things about computers, so, for the love of God if people out there (who do know things about them) see anything wrong with terminology etc I’ve used for Darcy’s ‘hacking’, please either ignore it, or tell me :3


	5. The Safehouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it is becoming increasingly clear to Cinna that Darcy/Steve/Sam are rapidly becoming her Brot3...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh guys! You're all so fantastically amazing! I am so touched and honoured by the love so many of you have expressed over this fic! You are all precious cinnamon rolls!
> 
> Speaking of cinnamon rolls... the darling Awkwardnormalcy MADE ME A TITLECARD!!! I am so happy- you should definitely check it out on the first chapter! Did I mention I was happy? Because I am XD

They attack at midnight. 

Darcy watches them with bated breath through the drone’s feed. They’re not in range of the safehouse cameras yet, but she can see them clearly though the drone- the night vision crisp and clear. Part of the drone’s features (which Darcy finds insanely cool and has her fearful of how long Tony’s had this kind of tech available for) is its ability to hack into Hydra’s camera feed with only a little difficulty.

There’s a lot of things Darcy’s going to have to thank Tony for when all of this is said and done. She’d never expected the man to be so accommodating and _helpful_ , but there you go. The Tin Man had a heart after all.

“Putting the safehouse’s feed on loop now,” she tells them through their shared comms. Steve hums in thanks and they creep forwards, the path now clear.

Darcy searches through the various cameras; there’s none inside the house that she’s aware of, and the drone’s not built for close quarter combat, but she can at least get them as prepared as possible.

She draws in close to the building, switching to the heat sensors (and _seriously_ Tony, how did he even fit this much stuff in this thing?) and does one whole sweep of the place, pausing at each gap in the boarded up windows. Se purses her lips when she’s done. “I count six people in the house. Four upstairs- asleep, by the looks of it. Another two downstairs- they’re in the kitchen, I think. The fridge is throwing off a bit of heat… I think they’re on watch, so you’d better be careful.”

She frowns, flicking through the feeds again. “If you take the back door, it leads straight into the kitchen. Take them out first and…” she scratches at the back of her head nervously, “well, I’m sure you know better than me what happens next.”

“ _Duly noted_ ,” Steve breathes as they run towards the back door, crouched down low amongst the long grass. They creep up the overgrown concrete path, weapons drawn, Steve’s blackened shield (they’d re-painted it that afternoon) only a dull glint in the light thrown down by the quarter moon.

“And boys?”

“ _Mm_?”

She breathes out slowly, calming the nervous tapping of her foot. Once they’re inside, she’ll only have their comms to monitor them with. “Be careful, please. And good luck.”

She hears the pair of them tap their comms, unable to reply without risking their positions. Darcy sighs heavily and sits up a little straighter in her uncomfortable motel chair. “Alright then. Operation Fuck Hydra Up is a go.”

 

 

Steve and Sam return looking a little worse for wear, but sharing grins that spread from ear to ear. There’s a bruise that’s already yellowing on Steve’s cheek, and one of Sam’s sleeves are torn, blood seeping from where a bullet just grazed him, but otherwise they’re hale and whole.

Darcy stands abruptly, feeling a little off-kilter even though the mission went off without a hitch.

“Honey, we’re home,” Steve drawls, clearly still buzzed on adrenalin.

She runs at him, wrapping her arms around his middle as tightly as she can. He staggers back just a fraction before his arms are closing around her and she feels herself relaxing at the contact; Steve is warm and smells of gunpowder and gasoline. “You’re okay,” she murmurs into his chest. It’s not a question; she knows he’s okay, but it feels good to say out loud.

His quiet laugh rumbles through his chest. “Yeah Darce,” he says, a smile in his voice. “We’re good.”

“Thank _Christ._ ” She pulls away from the man and turns to wrap Sam in a hug of his own. He stiffens for only a moment before returning the gesture. His hug is almost as strong as Steve and she hums at the feeling of security that’s returned now that the pair of them are back.

“Thanks for the assist out there, Lewis,” he murmurs into her hair. She squeezes him a little tighter.

“Happy to help you two idiots out,” Darcy grins when she moves away. She glances behind them to the closed door. “No tails?”

Steve shakes his head grimly, face darkening. “No,” he growls, and steps past her, already pulling off his jacket and hanging it over the back of her chair. The shirt underneath is sweat-stained and _tight_. Darcy wrinkles her nose at the sight, but Sam’s eyes trail after the man like a starved man. She rolls her eyes in exasperation. “We got all of them.”

She knows they got them all; the explosion they left behind was loud enough that she could hear the echoes of it from the motel, and she’s torn between the sensation of vicious satisfaction and hoping they’re not going to bring attention to themselves.

She frowns at him, deciding to go for the latter. “Did you really have to blow the place up?”

Steve turns around, a glass of water in hand. His eyes are wide and guileless and completely insincere. “But Darcy, _they_ triggered the self-destruct, not us.”

She stares at him flatly, unimpressed. Sam snorts and collapses down onto the shitty couch with a grateful sigh. “I could have turned it off. You got me into the system- I _told_ you I could turn it off.”

Steve shrugs, unaffected. He lowers himself down onto her chair. “Did you get everything you needed?”

She nods and catches the flash drive he throws at her. “Well, yeah. Everything they had... they had a lot of good intel. But that’s not the point, Steve! If you’re going to demolish every Hydra base we come across, not only are you going to step on a _lot_ of toes, but you’re going to bring attention to what we’re doing pretty damn quickly!”

He scratches the back of his neck, looking unapologetic. “We can’t just leave those places be, Darcy. Do you really want organisations like the CIA to get a hold of Hydra’s secrets? Their _research_? Every _single_ thing Hydra makes is poison- we can’t let anyone get a hold of that.”

“So your solution is to blow everything up? Steve, I don’t need to explain to you why that is going to end up being a bad idea.”

His eyes harden, jaw clenching. “You knew this wasn’t going to be walk in the park.”

She bares her teeth at him. “I did. And I’m _fine_ with that. But Steve, what happens if Hydra uses a base as a trap? What if they start predicting where we’re going to hit next? If you leave every one of their bases a smoking hole in the ground, they’re going to find out about where we’ve been hitting pretty fucking quickly!”

“ _No_ _one_ can get a hold of their files! And I will salt and burn every _single_ one of their hideouts and bases and facilities if that’s what we have to do to keep it that way.”

“So destroy their computers!” she exclaims, hands flying into the air in exasperation. “Let Jarvis and I go to town on their electronic files and wipe the shit out of them. Throw a grenade into their computer rooms! Operate the self-destruct if you _have_ to- if there’s more than just electronic files… I’m just saying we should try and _stick_ to stealth missions as much as we can.”

“Oh my God!” Sam groans from the couch suddenly. Steve’s mouth shuts abruptly. “Would the pair of you shut up for _five goddamn minutes?_ Both of you have some good points, but right now, can we just celebrate the fact that we just wiped our first Hydra safehouse off the map and are _still alive?_ ” The pair of them send Sam identical sheepishly apologetic looks. He shakes his head at them, eyes rolling.

“You’re right,” Darcy sighs, deflating. “Sorry. You guys did good today. And I’m glad you guys got out of there before you could get seriously hurt.”

Steve sends her a grateful smile as Sam nods approvingly. “You were a good handler, Darce. And I’ll consider what you said.”

She smiles broadly at him in relief. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

He nods, a thoughtful look crossing his face. “Do you think you could make a virus that wipes their drives?”

Darcy laughs and sits down across from him at the table. “You bet your sweet ass I can.”

“ _Guys_ ,” Sam moans, tilting his head back against the sofa. “For crying out loud _could you not_.”

“Sorry,” they say, almost in unison. Sam shakes his head in disgust at the both of them.

“You two. Brains that won’t shut off. Honestly.”

She laughs. “Can’t help it, sorry… did you want me to look at your arm?”

Sam rolls his head down to stare at his torn sleeve, as though just realising it’s there. He shrugs. “It’s not deep, I think.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “It was still bleeding when you came in.”

“I think I tore off the scab getting out of the car,” he admits sheepishly. Darcy snorts and gets up to grab the most comprehensive first-aid kit she’s ever seen from her room. She stops off in the bathroom to wet a hand towel.  

“Yeah, well we should probably get it cleaned. Unlike Steve, _your_ wounds can get infected.” She points at him with the box when she emerges. “Now, take your shirt off.”

He raises a brow, “If you wanted me naked…”

“Oh my God, you are such a guy!” she groans, shaking her head at him in exasperation. “Can you lot _literally_ think of nothing else to say in scenarios like this?”

He bites back a grin, eyes sparkling. “If it ain’t broke…”

“Well maybe it _is_ broke, you nong. Now- shirt. Off.”

Steve coughs uncomfortably as she sits down beside Sam, who’s unbuttoning his shirt with quick and efficient fingers. “Uh- Darcy… I can do that-”

“And deprive you of _that_ view?” she snickers at him, steamrolling straight over his attempt at remaining proper. A flush rises to the man’s cheeks. “Now, _why_ would I do that?”

Sam winks at her and she grins back, eyeing the flex of his arms as he gingerly slides his outer shirt off. She may not be interested, but there’s no point in pretending he’s not unfairly attractive. Steve’s a lucky guy.

Sam sits through her cleaning the wound with little complaint, even when she spreads betadine over the cut- which really is just a graze, fortunately. Darcy’s grateful; she’s not sure if she’d be able to stomach stitching him up just yet.

“How’d you get this, anyway?” she asks quietly. Sam shrugs with his free arm.

“Some goon caught me off guard.”

“Liar,” Steve says, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling blankly. The chair looks cheap enough that Darcy is legitimately worried that it might collapse beneath his weight. “A stray bullet ricocheted off a wall of the bunker. He thinks I didn’t see it, but I did.”

Sam stares agape at his soulmate. His mouth opens and closes a few times before his eyes narrow in challenge. “Man, here I am, tryna play it cool in front of your best friend as she tends my manly wounds, and you _dob me in?_ Well two can play at the game, asshole,” he turns back to Darcy, a wicked look to his smile. “See that shiner? The one that looks like he’s had it a week and a half? He got that from his goddamn _shield._ ”

“Tch- _Sam!_ ”

“I thought the guy was meant to know how to use that thing! But he just throws it and it comes straight back and slaps him in the face!”

Darcy barks out an astonished laugh.

“ _Sam!_ ” Steve whines, the flush from before returning full force, and Darcy doesn’t miss the way Sam’s grin goes a little softer, even as his gaze darkens appreciatively. “I was distracted! Vogel was gonna shoot you!”

“Yeah man,” Sam drawls, “sure sure.”

Darcy buries her face in her hands, unable to hold back her laughter. “You- oh my God- you hit yourself _in the face_ with your own _shield_. Wait until Natasha hears about this!”

Steve makes a guttural sound of horror at the thought. “I swear to God, Darce, if you tell her-”

“You’d never hear the end of it? You’re damn right!” she wipes away a stray tear of mirth, still giggle a little. Sam takes the kit from her lap, packing everything away with all the care and order of the soldier that he is. “Jesus- that one’s going in the books.”

Steve shakes his head, covering his eyes with one of his freakishly big hands as though he could hide from the pair of them. “You, Sam Wilson, are an asshole.”

Sam wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, even though his soulmate can’t see. “Takes two to tango, Rogers.”

Steve peeps at him through his fingers. “Why are we soulmates?”

“Because,” the corners of his lips twitch, the look on his face a touching mix of fondness and a wonder that Darcy can only empathise with, “I am naturally amazing and deserve a striking piece of man meat to flaunt around at Thanksgiving.”

Steve snorts, surprised. “You’re such a charmer, Wilson.”

He shrugs and stands up. Steve’s eyes trail him as he walks past to drop the first-aid kit on the kitchenette bench, his hand brushing over Steve’s should casually, as though reassuring himself that he’s there. Darcy suddenly feels very much like an outsider on this little pocket of intimacy; two brand new soulmates trying to work out where they fit into each other’s world. She bites her lip, standing up abruptly.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” she murmurs, brushing down the front of her jeans nervously. Steve and Sam smiles at her warmly and she hopes her answering smile looks nothing like how she feels. “We need to be out of here before ten, and I’d like to get at least a couple hours sleep before we go.”

“Sure,” Steve nods, none the wiser. His soulmate… not so much. “Sleep well.”

She swallows, mind swarming with images of _his_ shocked face and the flickers of betrayal in his eyes. “It’ll try,” she says lightly, knowing full well that it’s unlikely.

She retreats to her room, door closing behind her softly, and tries very hard not to think of the action as running away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo, there may be a bit of a wait for the next chapter. I'm going on an extended road trip for a week, and access to internet is likely to be few and far between... :S


	6. The Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, there he is...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! I managed to sneak another chapter through my untrustworthy internet connection! Yay!
> 
> A great big hug for everyone who's read this fic! I am so overwhelmed by your enthusiastic response! And a sorry in advance if it takes me several days to reply to comments- I just don't have the internet D':

The days blur into weeks, each trip fading into one long, _long_ journey.

Endless stretches of road, the bloated carcases of unfortunate wildlife and shredded black corpses of tires littering the roadside.

The same cheap meals and portions of salad, infinite coffees and bathroom breaks. Identical motel rooms; unchanging pocket soaps, uncomfortable bedsprings and shitty instant coffee and creamer.

Noisy, overheated laundromats and the desperate search for quarters. Morning runs that grow longer each week, Steve a relentless and merciless presence behind her.

Darcy sees every sight a million times over; the mundanity of it all plagues her dreams, as do snapshots of hurt in wide blue eyes and a face so lovely it brings tears to her eyes- awake or asleep.

And strewn through it all… harrowing nights spent alone- first in the security of their motel room and later, in their SUV- glued to her tablet, nails bitten to the quick as Steve and Sam tear through base after base. An unstoppable force borne with wicked grins and clothes that stink of blood and sweat and gunpowder.

The pair grow closer with every passing week, and even though Darcy is as included as ever- even though she finds herself become more and more invaluable to them- she can’t shake the feeling that she should be elsewhere. Should be searching for her own soulmate.

They catch only rumours of him- coded messages in Hydra emails, panicked babbling of captured agents- sometimes even the odd wreckages of a safehouse or facility. But they never get close enough; never get enough information to track him down. He is a ghost in every possible way.

A month passes with Darcy barely noticing. Sam’s had his new wings for weeks by then, and he’s the only one that bothers to mention the milestone as he swoops through the air like he was born for it. They’re halfway through an attack on a Hydra warehouse, and the wide open spaces of the building and surrounding area are perfect for it.

Steve and Darce share a hum of surprise and contemplation when he speaks. Thirty days into their three-man crusade, and it feels like they’ve only scraped the surface of Hydra’s ugly secrets. They’re certainly no closer to finding the Soldier.

“I suppose we should celebrate,” she replies, feeling like she’d rather do the exact opposite.

There’s an exchange of gunfire through their comms. “ _What-_ hn _\- what do you suggest?”_ asks Steve, sounding slightly distracted. Darcy focusses on the task at hand- breaking through Hydra’s firewall so she can halt any self-destruct sequence (Hydra _really_ likes those, they’ve found) and find out where those shipping containers are meant to be going. And what’s in them.

“I don’t know- a movie?” she suggests as soon as she and Jarvis have punched through. “There’s bound to be something on; be nice to have a night off.”

“ _Half our nights are nights off_ ,” Steve points out. Darcy rolls her eyes.

“No, half our nights are spent planning. The other half are spent shooting at things.”

“ _Don’t be ridiculous, Darcy_ ” Sam snarks. His voice sounds oddly distorted, as it often becomes when he travels at speed with the wings. “ _Hydra agents aren’t_ things _. They have feelings too_!”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’re fucking _delightful_.”

“ _Delightful is_ not _the word I would use_ ,” Steve grunts, and there’s the loud _ting_ of bullets hitting his Shield.

Darcy’s eyes widen- she’s just worked out what’s in the shipping containers, and it’s nothing good. “Guys… I think we’d better blow this one.”

“ _And why-_ shit _\- why’s that?_ ” Sam huffs. She catches sight of him twisting away from a spray of bullets by some nameless goon in Susan’s feed (Darcy ended up naming the drone. She couldn’t help it).

“Because,” she says slowly, scrolling through the information, “they’re shipments of first stage Centipede Serum. Originally destined for Cybertek and Quinn Worldwide, but they’ve just been resold to an arms dealer in South Africa.”

“ _Crap_ ,” Steve curses vehemently. Darcy appreciates the sentiment.

“Guess we turned up at the right time- they were meant to be sent off two days from now.”

“ _Yeah_ …” Sam says eventually, sounding a little perplexed, “ _For the one’s_ without _the photographic memory?_ ”

“Don’t lie, Sam. We both know you never bothered reading those files.”

“ _Hey, you know how it works, Lewis. I’m the brawn; you two are the brains_.”

“We all know that’s bullshit, Wilson. You’re just lazy.”

“ _Says the woman who sent me out to buy her chocolates three days ago because- and I quote- ‘I have to watch the washing machine._ ’ ”

“Well it’s not like it was a lie!”

“ _The vending machine was literally outside the laundromat._ ”

“So I may have spent all our cash on clean clothes… it’s not like you can blame me!”

“ _Guys_!” Steve exclaims, sounding strained, as though trying to hold back his amusement by sheer force of will. “ _Could we please focus on the task at the hand?_ ”

“Steve, _darling_ , I’m multi-tasking.”

Sam laughs at her and she scowls at her tablet. “ _The Centipede Serum, Darcy?_ ”

She coughs. “Right. It’s uh… like a bastard breed of the super-soldier serum and Extremis, with Chitauri tech and a whole lotta gamma radiation thrown in for good measure. It gives subjects the usual shtick; super-strength, durability, accelerated healing, but if it’s unstable then it has a tendency to get explodey. Nasty stuff, all in all.”

“ _Extremis… that’s what Pepper Potts was given, wasn’t it?_ ”

Darcy nods even though neither men can see her. “Got it in one. But Tony stabilised it, so she hardly ever goes ka-blooey now.”

“ _That’s a charming mental image_ ,” Steve notes dryly. Over the comms, the background noise falls quiet. She brings Susan down a little lower, and he waves at her, a triumphant grin on his face.

“That all of them?”

“ _Yeah. Give us two minutes and then start the self-destruct_.”

“Will do, Cap.” She takes Susan down even lower so the soldier can grab it easily. “Sam, be a dear and grab my flash drive?”

“ _On i_ t,” Sam replies and Darcy activates the virus that will wipe everything but their trusty self-destruct sequence. The tablet pings, letting her know the drive’s been removed,

“Ta very much. Hey, do me a favour and get a picture for me? I wanna add it to my wall.”

“ _No promises, Lewis_.”

“Aw, thanks Sam! This is why you’re my favourite.”

“ _You just want me for my wings_.”

She laughs. “Not just your wings babe. I like your money too.”

“ _Hey!_ ” Steve growls, playing the possessive boyfriend well, “ _that’s my soulmate you’re sweet talking_.”

“Aw Steve, I love you too.” She glances at the timer that’s started in the right hand corner of her screen. “You boys have a minute and thirty to get out before I reduce this place to rubble.”

“ _Noted_ ,” Steve grunts, and from the way Susan’s feed is bouncing around like crazy, he’s already started running. Darcy doesn’t even bother worrying about Sam- with the wings, he can travel faster than a jet ( _how_ is beyond Darcy, but the fact remains that he can).

“Good game,” she says, watching the numbers creep down. “I’ll see you boys in three.” In her ear, the men vocalise their agreements and Darcy shuts off Susan’s camera. She turns the car on, ready to leave the moment both are back in the car.

(In the end, Sam doesn’t get her the photos. The bastard.)

 

 

Darcy sprains her ankle on day 45.

The whole thing is ridiculous, and _entirely_ Steve’s fault.

Darcy trips on it late at night, meaning to go to the bathroom and instead ending up sprawled on the awful commercial carpet, cussing up a storm. Sam and Steve are charging out of their room before she’s even finished her first ‘ _fucking fuck’_ , looking like a pair of half-naked gods and- _shit_ \- but it is _way_ too early for her to have to deal with this kind of crap.

“Darce?” Steve asks, confused. Sam moves past him to flick on the living room lights.

Steve sports a number of faded but still impressive hickies around his neck and trailing down his chest, which answers one of her questions, but still- _way_ too early for her to have to deal with.

“ _Steve_ ,” she growls, absolutely livid, “why the _fuck_ did you leave your shield outside my room?”

Steve gapes at her, apparently unaware of his state of undress. “I… didn’t?”

Darcy glares at him; she’s going to kill him. Her ankle is throbbing like an absolute _bitch_. “Then _why_ , pray tell, was it sitting on the floor, right where I would no doubt step on it?”

He’s staring down at her with wide eyes. “I don’t… I didn’t-”

Darcy groans, scrubbing at her face with a hand. “Well one of you two left it there, ‘cause it sure as hell wasn’t _me_.”

Sam holds up his hands. “Don’t look at me, Lewis. Innocent.”

She huffs angrily and leans forward to tentatively check her ankle. It’s already started to swell, and the pain, when she touches it, ramps up momentarily before settling back down to an insistent throbbing. “Fuck.”

Sam kneels down beside her and Steve picks up his shield, dropping it on their bed. He knocks her hand away lightly, taking her ankle and lightly prodding at it. Darcy hisses and Sam sends her a rueful look. “Guess you sprained your ankle.”

“No shit.”

Sam rolls his eyes at her, unaffected by her tetchy reply. “Steve? You wanna gimme a hand here? Let’s get her on the couch.”

Steve returns, this time wearing a shirt and for all that she’s mad at him, Darcy can’t help but mourn the loss of the view. Carefully, he crouches down, gathering her in his arms and depositing her on the couch. She hears Sam open the mini fridge.

“There are ice-packs in the first-aid kit, Sam.” The man exclaims and disappears into her room and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m real sorry, Darce.”

“Save it, Rogers,” she grunts with little venom. “That was my driving foot.”

“I swear, Darcy. I have no idea how it got there.”

She glares up at him, hovering over her like an anxious parent. He looks so earnest that she can’t help but believe him. Isn’t going to stop her from being angry and irritable. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy necking your boyfriend,” she gripes, unable to resist, “you'd have enough blood spare to remember!"

Steve’s eyes widen and Sam snickers. “She’s got you there.”

His mouth opens and closes, obviously caught off-guard. “I-”

Darcy lays a hand on his arm, smiling up at him grimly. “I’m just teasing, you goof… how long?”

Steve frowns down at her. “I not going to just-”

“Three weeks,” Sam supplies, kneeling down at her feet. “Just after we left New York.” The ice pack touches her ankle and she sighs in relief.

“Good to know you guys followed my ‘no audible nookie’ rule. Thanks for that.”

Sam huffs a laugh and Steve offers her some pills and a glass of water. “You’re welcome, Lewis,” he drawls. She sighs heavily.

“I can’t believe I tripped over your goddamn shield.”

“Sorry,” Steve offers, grimacing at her in sympathy. “But I have no idea how it got there.”

She waves away any more of his apologies. “Bygones. At least it means no more morning runs.”

The super-soldier laughs, shaking his head in exasperation. “They’re not even that bad. Why are you still complaining about them?”

“ ‘Cause I can.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

She grins at him and Steve moves to the kitchen, flicking on the motel’s ancient kettle with a resigned sigh. “Guess none of us are getting any more sleep tonight.”

“You guessed right, soldier.” She points imperiously at the kettle, smiling at him smugly. “I’ll have a coffee, thanks.”

 

 

They leave her in the motel for the mission.

Darcy’s pissed, but she gets it. There’s no point bringing her along as getaway driver if she can’t _drive_. By the afternoon, her ankle is stiff and doesn’t take well to supporting her weight, so it’s not as though she can really protest Steve’s decision.

Even so, she takes no small amount of pleasure in bitching about it through the mission, once again relegated to the motel room to watch her friends take down a Hydra base with a synchronicity that both terrifies and delights her. Steve and Sam bear her wrath admirably, but it’s clear by the end of the mission that they’re relieved to be done with her.

“You two okay?” she asks when it’s over. Through the blurred footage of Susan’s feed (Steve’s carrying her again), Darcy catches sight of the hidden SUV.

“ _We’re good_ ,” Steve replies. Sam swoops down, landing gracefully immediately beside the vehicle and unlocks it just in time for Steve’s arrival.

Darcy leans back in her seat, feeling relieved and useless all at once. They’d not found much of use this time- it happens, but Darcy always feels like a pointless accessory every time it does. “Great,” she sighs, and turns off Susan’s camera. Over the comms, she hears the doors open and close and the engine purr to life. “Guess I’ll see you guys soon, then.”

“Yeah,” he replies, and it’s not her imagination that he sounds a little short. “See you in an hour.”

The comms click off and Darcy crumples forwards, resting her head on the table with a dull _thunk._ “I owe them a gallon of ice-cream for tonight.” The tablet doesn’t reply and Darcy groans. She’s been a class-A bitch all night, but Steve and Sam didn’t snap back at her once.

She lets herself wallow for a good five minutes before noting the growing pressure in her bladder. She grimaces and hauls herself up, hobbling over to the bathroom to relieve herself.

It takes her a whole two seconds to realise she’s not alone when she limps back into the living room.

Darcy stares in shock at the man standing beside the table, a gloved hand resting on her tablet. He’s in a hoodie and dark coloured jeans, long hair covering a good deal of his face, but it’s unmistakeably him.

The Winter Soldier.

“What-” she starts, but he’s already bounding towards her. Pain shoots up her leg as she stumbles back, a half-formed thought of hiding in the bathroom passing through her mind, but he’s too quick. His hands wrap around her wrists like vices, strong enough to leave bruises.

“No-” she tries, eyes glancing to the front door, but Steve and Sam won’t be back for a good fifty minutes, at least. The look in his eyes is hard and cold when she glances back at him and Darcy can’t help it- she _panics_. Lashes out with a knee aimed straight for his groin. The Soldier barely flinches, but when she kicks at his knees as hard as she can he growls, backing her into the wall so hard her breath escapes her lungs in one traitorous gust of air.

_What is he doing here?_

The Soldier shifts, moving to hold both her wrists in his metal hand; holds them high above her head. The other hand covers her mouth, blocking the scream she tries to get out as soon as she gets her breath back.

“ _Stop it!_ ” he hisses, arm pressed up against one of her shoulders in an attempt to still her panicked writhing. The man draws in close- close enough that Darcy can make out every hair on his stupid face. She bares her teeth at him angrily, but hidden behind his hand the gesture does little.

She tries to shout at him, but the words come out as muffled screeches. The Soldier’s eyes flash dangerously and her squeezes her wrists with enough force to make it painful.

“I said _stop_ ,” he growls and Darcy stills, the fight leaving her in one fell swoop.

 _If he wanted me dead,_ she thinks to herself, trying to reason, _I’d already be face down in a pool of my own blood._

It doesn’t end up being as comforting a thought as she’d hoped.

The relief on his face is palpable- and surprising.

“You’re the one who’s been helping them?” he asks, voice shockingly loud in the sudden silence of the motel room. “You’ve been giving them intel- activating the self-destructs?”

Darcy glares at him and garbles a few choice words at him from beneath his hand. Annoyance flickers across his face, and for a moment she’s struck by the thought that for an allegedly emotionless killer, he’s not terribly good at schooling his emotions.

“ _Answer me_ , little girl. Are you the one who’s been helping them?”

The metal hand squeezes tighter, and the sharp pain of her bones grinding together brings tears to her eyes. Darcy nods and his grip slackens- but not enough for her to break free. His eyes skitter across her face, searching for any signs of deceit before he nods decisively.

“Good,” he murmurs, and pulls away just a little. Remorse flashes across his face- almost too quick for her to catch. “Then I’m sorry about this.”

And then his hand moves away from her mouth, rising and striking her on the temple before she can so much as scream for help.

A sharp, blinding pain–

Then

Nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Cringes away from everyone* Please don't kill me! All will eventually be well! I promise!  
> Just... not right now.


	7. The Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is No One.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap you guys! Your response to the last chapter was crazy! I felt super bad that I had to leave you hanging for so long on that note, but I have now returned from my roadtrip, sunburned but two chapters richer :D Don't know when the next chapter will go up- it's on my phone, so it's in shambles right now- but fingers crossed it will be soon :D

Darcy comes to with the feeling that her head is trying to split in two. The zip ties around her hands and feet are almost an afterthought, but there’s a rattling in her head that she can’t ignore and the violent thrum of an engine cuts through her blissful unconsciousness like a knife through butter. She groans, shifting, and the world comes slowly into focus.

There’s a seat belt strapped across her chest, holding her upright as she leans heavily against a car door. The window her head rests against is the source of the inconsistent rattle and when she moves back, her face leaves a greasy imprint on the glass. Her mouth feels hot and sweaty beneath the duct tape strapped across it.

The Winter Soldier is driving, fingers tapping away to a rhythm she can’t hear.

Darcy stays as quiet as possible, trying not to bring attention to herself, and tries the handle. They’re moving too fast for her to risk getting out- by the looks of it, they’re already on the motorway- but she knows from her lessons with Natasha that it’s best to explore all your avenues of escape.

“The child lock is on,” The Soldier says, breaking through the silence. He sits front and opposite to her, and in the dark she can make out the whites of his eyes reflected at her via the rearview mirror.

Darcy growls in frustration and tries the door anyway, but he’s not lying. She screams at him as best she can and thumps her throbbing head against the window in a fit of rage. This is _not_ how their hunt is meant to go.

_Christ_ , but Steve is going to _lose it_ when he comes back to an empty motel room.

“Quit it,” he grunts, staring at her through the tilt of the rearview mirror. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Fuck you,” she tries to say, but the words come out as a garbled collection of sounds through the tape. She’s so _angry_ ; this man is meant to be her _soulmate_. He’d died and come back and she was meant to be searching for him and instead he’s fucking _kidnapped_ her. Darcy grabs tight to that anger and lets it sharpen her focus, refusing to play the damsel in distress.

The darkened shapes of trees and fields pass them by, little more than blurs.

There is, she realises belatedly, an icepack strapped around her swollen ankle.

“I’m… sorry,” he says suddenly. Darcy starts. The Soldier’s gaze is fixed on the road, but she hopes he can feel her glare through the back of the seat. “But you’ve been helping them.”

“ _So?_ ” she asks through the tape.

“You’re… good,” he says slowly. Carefully, like the words don’t come easy to him. Darcy wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly the case. “I need your help.”

“So you _kidnapped_ me?”

Even though her incredulous reply is almost illegible, the man must manage to read her tone easily enough. Her view of him through the rearview mirror remains stoic. Darcy growls in frustration and curls forward, grabbing at the tape with her cuffed hands and peeling it off. There is a sharp sting as she pulls it away, and she suspects part her mouth has left with it.

The man sighs heavily and pulls out a gun, levelling it over his shoulder and straight at her.

“Do _not_ start screaming.”

Darcy bares her teeth at him. The though _had_ crossed her mind. In such a confined space the sound at least would be distracting as hell. “You’re not going to shoot me,” she smiles at him. “You said it yourself; I’m good.” She tilts her head, taking in what she can of him. In the hoodie and jeans, he could almost pass as normal- even with that stupid beard of his.

“That looks itchy,” she notes. Her swivels in her seat, actually deigning to send her an incredulous glare.

“ _What?_ ”

“Your beard,” she wiggles her fingers, motioning to his facial hair, unphased by his inattention to the road. It looks just this side of unkempt, and Darcy would bet her apartment in the Tower that it’s growing out of a mix of laziness and necessity. “I bet it’s itchy.”

The Soldier scowls and turns back to the road. ‘It’s fine,” he grits out, with all the conviction of a man clearly lying through his teeth. She watches as his hand tightens on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white.

The hand holding the gun doesn’t waver.

Darcy rolls her eyes at him. “I won’t scream. I promise.” He glares at her a little more through the mirror and she shrugs. “You didn’t have to kidnap me, either. I’d have helped if you’d asked nicely.”

And it’s true. She would have gone with him in a heartbeat; it had been her intention all along. Help him in any capacity he’d take her in… just, maybe not like _this_.

“You were freaking out.”

“You came at me! There was a stranger in my room, we’re on a Hydra rampage… what else was I going to do?”

He doesn’t answer, glaring out at the road as he disappears the weapon. Darcy sighs and leans her throbbing head against the glass again. She wonders what state he left the room in.  

“Why?”

She startles. “Why what?”

“Why would you… help me?”

Darcy stares at his profile, searching for any resemblance to the man she met in 1944, but the closest she can find is the curve of his nose. Even his eyes are different. There are small streaks of silver in his beard. Darcy wonders how long they’ve been there.

She bites her lip.

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“Darcy Lewis,” he says without hesitation, nor any indication that he has any memory of who she really is. She swallows back her disappointment and the urge to scream at the world; they’d known each other a sum total of two hours in _1944_.  It’s stupid of her to hope he’d remember who she is.

“I’m Steve’s friend,” she says instead, and it’s a weak cover, but true nonetheless. “He’s going after Hydra, but his secondary objective is to find you.”

He breathes out heavily, clenching his jaw. “I know,” he says hoarsely.

She hums and tries to put on a cheery smile. She’s probably failing horribly. “Well, Steve’s _my_ friend, and you’re his. Or was- whatever dude- it’s obvious Steve’s not going to let you go without a fight. So I came along. Figured I could help keep his stupid ass out of the fire, if I could.” He’s looking at her again through the mirror and Darcy holds his gaze. “And you know… you look like a guy who could use a helping hand. So yeah… could have used your words and asked.”

Darcy’s surprised to find that the more she talks, the more she realises that what she’s saying is true. She stares down at her bound hands. The skin around the zip ties is dark, already turning purple, and when she tugs at the bindings they ache fiercely. She sighs and tries to settle herself, slouching into the seat so her hands rest more comfortably on her stomach.

“So,” Darcy says eventually, when it becomes clear the man isn’t about to start talking. “You said you needed my help?”

His fingers drum against the steering wheel. She’s not sure if it’s a sign of nervousness or impatience.

“There’s a Hydra base.” Darcy rolls her eyes, because _of_ _course_ there is. There’s always a Hydra base. “They have information that I… need. And I can’t- I’m not-”

“Good with computers?” Darcy offers, taking pity on him. He nods jerkily.

“It wasn’t-”

“Your job. I get it. More of a point a shoot kind of guy.”

The steering wheel creaks beneath his hands for a moment and Darcy bites her tongue. She won’t apologise- she’s still pissed off. “Is it manned?”

“…”

“The base, is it manned? Or can we just stroll right on in?”

He glances at her through the mirror- quickly, averting his eyes almost too quickly for her to notice. She groans, rubbing at her face with his bound hands. “It’s full of bodies, isn’t it.”

He tilts his head towards her- as good as a confirmation. “It was barely occupied.”

She stares up at the sagging carpet on the ceiling of the car, poking her tongue against her cheek. “And how many, pray tell, does ‘barely occupied’ entitle?”

“… Eighteen.”

“ _Sweet mother of Thor_.”

“…”

“And you didn’t think to leave one of them alive to help you?”

He tuts unhappily. “He had a cyanide pill.”

A car overtakes them and Darcy tilts her head out of their sight on instinct. It comes almost as a surprise to learn that the man (whom she should really start thinking of something other than ‘The Soldier’ or ‘him’) is a sensible driver. Steve would probably even go so far as to call him _good._ Or at the very least better than Darcy (which is of course ridiculous because Darcy is a _fantastic_ driver).

“So you want me to what? Hack into their servers and find you the information you need?”

He’s silent, staring out at the road. Darcy taps her un-sprained foot but she can’t stop the small grin of amusement at the thought of the Winter Soldier baulking at a computer terminal. “You have no idea what that means, do you?”

He makes a noise of irritation at the back of his throat. “I know what it means,” he growls. “It’s just that it was never my job.”

She raises her hands to placate him. “Alright dude, chill. So you’re what, going to take me into a Hydra base full of dead goons and let me have at their computers? Because I can do that- although there’s no guarantee that I won’t maybe throw up. I’ve never seen a dead body before… okay, that’s a lie- I have- but like, in the heat of the moment. Not when they’ve been all gross and bloaty. Jesus- how long have these guys been dead for?”

She’s rambling. She knows she is. It takes far more effort than it probably should for her to stop.

Barnes- and it takes _all_ of her considerable willpower to call him that- taps his fingers again. Still not certain what it means. “Five days.”

“Yeah,” Darcy sighs. “I’m definitely going to puke.”

 

 

 

They drive through the night, taking a far more circuitous route than Darcy thinks is necessary. Barnes stops only once- the sun barely a thought on the horizon- to swap cars, and Darcy spares a moment of sympathy for whoever has just gone down one gunmetal grey SUV. He carries her into their new vehicle, refusing to cut the zip ties from her ankles despite Darcy’s enthusiastic promises. Darcy discovers that he’d at least had the decency to take her bag full of clothes from the motel room. Nothing else, of course, but it’s a start. It does however, make her wonder just how long he plans to keep her for.

He drives tirelessly for long hours into the country, through more backroads and dirt streets than she thought possible, and she’s still not entirely sure if he’s doing it to evade a tail (and with her gone, Steve and Sam are all but certain to search for her) or just taking the route he knows to the Hydra base. By the time they stop outside a farmhouse that Darcy can add to her growing tally of not-actually-a-farmhouse finds, she’s decided to call it a mix of both.

“Do they ever use anything _other_ than warehouses and farmsteads?” she sighs in resignation as he pulls up beside a car with tires that have clearly been slashed. No doubt Barnes’ work.

He shrugs and gets out of the SUV. Darcy waits patiently for him to open her door and doesn’t flinch when he pulls a knife from his boot to cut through her zip-ties. “They’re isolated,” he grunts, and glances up at her. “Keep traffic to a minimum and no one suspects a thing.”

She wrinkles her nose in distaste and levers herself carefully from the car. “Well yes, but they’re _isolated._ Not exactly convenient for anything that uses a lot of resources.”

Barnes shrugs again and moves around to the trunk, fishing out her satchel (thank God) and a duffle bag full of what she suspects must be weapons of various make. “That’s what the warehouses are for.”

She rolls her eyes. “You got me there, I guess. Now could you undo these too?” she offers up her hands and the Soldier regards them warily. “Oh for fucks sake,” Darcy huffs in annoyance, “what do you think I’m going to do? Turn on you?” she motions between the two of them with her bound hands. “Look at us! I’m _tiny_ compared to you! Not that I’d want to do so; ever heard of the old saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’? ‘Cause that totally applies!”

He glances away, jaw clenching with who knows what. “Fine,” he bites out. “Give me your hands.”

She offers them readily and he cuts through the ties. Darcy sighs in relief, rubbing at her sore wrists carefully. “Thank-you,” she says gratefully, and smiles at him.

He freezes, expression unreadable. Darcy’s smile falters at the sight and she opens her mouth to say something but Barnes is already spinning around, stalking away from her with awkward, jerky movements, completely different from what she’d expect of the Winter Soldier.

“Was it something I said?” she grouses under her breath, and she takes a tentative step forward. She whimpers when she steps wrong and pain lances up her legs. “You could have gotten me a goddamn crutch, asshole!”

Barnes pauses, shifting slightly to glance at her, eyes falling to her feet, as though suddenly remembering that’s she’s currently crippled. He turns back around and disappears into the house. Darcy scowls at his departure, only to blink a moment later when he re-emerges, carrying a walking stick in once hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says lowly as he hands it to her. Darcy takes it off him in shock. “For the leg.”

“It’s fine,” she finds herself saying before she can remember she’s angry at him. There’s such an earnest look on his face she can’t stop herself. “It was an accident.”

His eyes skirt away, hand on the duffle bag clenching. He looks… guilty. Darcy’s eyes narrow at him in suspicion and he continues to avoid eye contact.

Her mouth falls open, aghast, as the pieces fall into place. “Did you- did _you_ fucking put the shield there?”

He flinches like a guilty child and turns away, moving back to the house. “Oh my God!” Darcy makes a soft sound of outrage and limps after him, leaning heavily on the walking stick. “You fucking _asshole!_ I blamed _Steve_ for that, you prick! That fucking hurt!”

“I needed to separate the three of you!” he growls, scowling back at her. Darcy just _barely_ manages to repress the urge to throw something- like a rock- at him.

“So you thought, hey, why not try and break the girl’s neck?”

“You wouldn’t have broken your neck.”

“I could have! James Buchanan Barnes, I am _so_ mad at you right now, you-”

He’s turning back on her, eyes wild and Darcy stumbles back a step. “Don’t call me that.”

She stares at him, breathing heavily. “Then what should I call you?”

His head jerks to the side, gaze flying away from her. In that moment, Darcy thinks he looks more vulnerable than any man has a right to be. He presses his lips together unhappily. “I don’t… I’m not- I’m not him.”

“Then _who are you?_ ”

“… No one.”

Her heart breaks at the statement, said with such certainty. “I don’t believe that.”

She _can’t_. She can’t believe that she is the soulmate of a no one. Can’t believe that a man like Bucky Barnes could be reduced to nothing, as though he’d never even existed.

“Tch-” he flinches away from her. “Whatever. Call me whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

She watches him walk back into the house, heart feeling like it’s trying to tear itself in two. This is not what she envisaged. Not what she thought when deciding she would help Steve help her. Darcy is struck by the realisation that she would desperately like to see Jane and Thor. Hell, she’d give anything to see Natasha; someone- anyone- who is removed from this whole drama.

But the world offers her no relief; only a soulmate who doesn’t know who she is, walking into a house filled with dead men.

Darcy breathes out shakily, and pushes away her misgivings. She has a soulmate to help, and she’s not about to let him down twice.  


	8. The Password

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra's IT department should really stop letting the higher ups make their own passwords.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR MENTIONS OF DEATH/FIVE DAY OLD BODIES.  
> If you are weak of stomach be warned that I write about the smells so, kindly go forth with caution.  
> FURTHERMORE there are more references to self-harm in re. to Darcy's soulmark.

The smell hits her immediately. Thick and cloying, the stench of rotting flesh is strong enough to send her reeling, gag reflex working in overtime.

“Oh God,” she whimpers, before leaning against a wall, just barely missing her shoes as she throws up what little’s in her stomach. She finds herself thankful Barnes never gave her more than a couple of granola bars and water, unwilling to stop any longer than he has to (Darcy doesn’t blame him; she has no doubt in her mind that Steve is presently tearing the place apart and calling in as many favours as possible to look for her).

Ahead of her, Barnes’ footsteps falter. Darcy moans, and repeats it when her mouth fills with the smell.

“I don’t think I can do this,” she whimpers, hand clamped firmly over her mouth and nose. “You couldn’t have taken the bodies outside _before_ they turned putrid?”

“I needed to find someone,” he murmurs, and draws in close to her. “I didn’t think it would take this long to find you.” Something white is shoved in to her line of sight. “This will help.”

Darcy snatches it from him with a hand that’s shaking like a leaf. It’s a face mask- nothing special, just a white painter’s mask, but taped inside is a small fabric bag of put-pourri. Darcy shoves it over her face and sighs at the marginal relief it offers. It’s enough to stop her gagging, at any rate, as the pot-pourri is strong enough to burn her nostrils.

“You really think of everything, don’t you?” she grumbles, eyeing the mask resting slightly awkwardly over his beard. Barnes spares only a passing glance before stalking away from her.

He pauses, looking down. “Don’t look at the ground,” he tells her. “Keep your eyes on me.”

She nods shakily even though he can’t see it, and hobbles after him, doing exactly as he tells her. With good reason, as it turns out, because there are places where her shoes stick to the ground, and in her peripheral vision, she can still make out the dark forms of bodies.

She doesn’t dare glance down to study them. Darcy doesn’t need to know what a five day old body looks like, Hydra goon or not.

“Did you disable the cameras?”

He points, wordlessly, at the wreckage of electronics hanging from the corner of the room. The camera lens clearly has a bullet hole in its centre. “Oh,” she murmurs. “Well I guess that’s one way of disabling them.”

He huffs softly through his nose. “No tech wizard for me.”

She finds herself laughing, half out of disbelief. “Tech wizard? Me? I bet you get all the girls with talk like that.”

He sends her an odd look and Darcy grins at him, realising only a moment too late that the gesture is hidden by the mask. He must know what she’s doing though, because he rolls his eyes and turns back around.

“Through here, Lewis,” he grunts, beckoning her forwards with a gloved hand. Darcy grimaces at the address but says nothing. She follows him through to the kitchen, where the entrance to the Hydra bunker is inexplicably found.

Against her better judgement, Darcy glances down and baulks at the sight of the stairs. “Uh,” she hesitates, embarrassed. “I don’t know how well I’m going to manage those stairs with this leg.” He stops at the bottom of the stairs, glancing up at her. Darcy shrugs at him helplessly, and something flashes through his eyes, too quick to read. “Sorry.”

He shrugs and trudges up the stairs, unceremoniously picking her up in a fireman’s hold. Darcy yelps in surprise and slaps his back in retribution. “ _Jesus Christ!_ Warn a girl, would you? I’m not a sack of potatoes!”

He barks a short laugh and mutters what sounds very much like a ‘could have fooled me’ under his breath. Darcy squawks in outrage.

“Fuck you!”

He puts her back down gently at the bottom of the stairs, leaving for a moment to grab her walking stick. “You’re welcome, doll,” he drawls, and for a moment Darcy is almost convinced he’s the man he used to be, before the businesslike blankness of before returns. “The computers are through here.”

“You got it, old man,” she mutters bitterly, and Barnes spares her only a questioning look before they’re off again.

The computes in question are a bank of screens, full of blinking lights and whirring fans. Darcy sighs in wonder at the sight- Hydra or not, it’s been an age since she’s seen something more substantial than her tablet.

Then she notices the body.

“Haaaa, shit,” she sighs, staring at the bloated corpse of who she assumes must have been the guy to take the cyanide pill. ‘You couldn’t have taken away his body? Now I have to work with him staring at the back of my head.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”

Darcy makes a face in disgust and studiously avoids looking at the body. “That is disgusting. Don’t touch him.”

He shrugs again. “I’ve done worse.”

Darcy is 100% certain she does not want to touch that statement with a ten foot pole. Not right now, at any rate.

She sits down heavily in one of the empty twirly chairs, resting the walking stick carefully against the desk. “Now, what was it you needed me to get?”

Barnes takes the other twirly chair, and the sight of the dour man sitting on something as domestic as a wheelie chair is so absurd Darcy has to bite back a hysterical giggle.

“I need the schematics for my arm,” he says, and Darcy is struck by obvious trust this man is putting in her. He doesn’t even know her- all he has to go on is the knowledge that Steve obviously trusts her, and somehow- for some reason- that is enough for him.

She clears her throat, nervous. “And- uh- why do you think they’d be here?”

His expression darkens. ‘They’d make their upgrades here.”

Darcy swallows, eyes skating over to the dead technician against her will. He’s an ugly sight, and Darcy has to close her eyes and breathe in deeply through her mouth to steel herself. She just barely manages to stop herself from choking on the sickening mix of lavender pot-pourri and rotting flesh instead. She’ll never be able to think of her nan’s lavender scented bed sheets again.

“Okay then,” she breathes, pulling the chair over to the nearest computer. “Let’s get started.” She spares a glance at the card reader in the keyboard and grimaces. First obstacle. “Crap; so tell me…. What exactly did you take of mine?”

He stares at her blankly. “Clothes.”

Darcy closes her eyes for a long second to control her temper. “You took all the tech out, didn’t you.” He shrugs and Darcy suppressed the urge to lunge over and strangle him. “This would have been _so much easier_ if you’d left some of that crap in.”

Barnes remains impassive and Darcy groans, banging her head on the bench for a moment in self-pity and something clacks against the melamine. She starts and looks down, laughing at her idiocy. She pulls off her necklace and pushes out the usb stick, crowing in delight. “Good Lord, I am a fool.” Darcy’s worn it for long she almost forgot it was anything more than a tacky trinket to annoy Tony.

“What’s that?” Barnes asks, sitting up straight in his chair.

“This,” she smirks, “is our ticket in.” Darcy slides the drive into the closest usb port she can find. “Tony made a dummy program years ago, designed to break into Shield servers, but it’s kind of outdated now. So I improved it. It’s a little faster now. I made Tony mad.”

“Right,” he says slowly. Darcy doesn’t bother explaining it, just lets the program do its work. She grins when it gets her through easily enough, and starts looking for files about Barnes.

It doesn’t take long to hit a snag. “Bugger.”

“What?”

She grimaces. “The deets on your arm are higher clearance than this program usually goes for. I fixed the problem in my other drives- I forgot to worry about this one, though.”

He frowns at her. “Can you get around it?”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Of course I can. I’m just whingeing to myself.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fine- just- ah. There we go.” Her fingers fly across the keyboard, the room mostly silent but for the sound of frenzied tapping and the muted whir of computer fans. She pauses, frowning at the command prompt for a moment before whooping in laughter.

“What?” Barnes asks, staring at her as though she’s grown a third head. Darcy giggles some more, pointing at the screen as she hunches forwards.

“Sorry it’s just- oh my Thor do you have a phone? This needs to be documented.” He peers over her shoulder, curious. Darcy sniggers again and points at what she’s just found, finger shaking with mirth. “Their password, man. It’s fucking ‘STEVEROGERSSUX’.”

Barnes snorts softly, against his better judgement and Darcy curls into herself to laugh into her legs. “I can’t,” she wheezes, “Holy Frigga mother of Thor that is too precious. What are they, fucking first-graders?”

“No, they’re dead.”

Darcy cackles unattractively, eyes tearing up. Who knew the ex-Winter Soldier has a sense of humour. He’s sporting a slight smile, she notices when she peeks up at him, unable to stop laughing. By the time she manages to get herself under control and go back to work, several minutes have passed and Barnes is starting to look impatient, glancing somewhat anxiously at his neon blue dollar store watch.

Darcy’s still snickering slightly when she finds what she’s looking for. She grins in delight. “I’ve got it.”

Barnes wheels his chair over to her and Darcy moves out of the way to let him take over. She tries not to laugh at his excruciatingly slow navigation of the computer, but he finds what he wants easily enough. Darcy’s eyes widen when she realises exactly what he was looking for.

“A _tracker_?” she breathes, staring in horror at the schematics for the little gps tracker hidden in the depths of his metal bicep. “You’re looking for a tracker? And oh my God- is that a goddam EMP?”

He hums, flicking through the pages, revealing detailed diagrams and information. There is, beside the transmitter and EMP, a series of compartments containing what she can only guess must be poison. Talk about covering all of their bases. “They can only deactivate the arm from close range; a safe guard for maintenance. They’ve been in hiding, but it won’t be long before they start looking. He was meant to be my last mission.”

She gapes at him. ”Steve?” Barnes nods once. “And then they were what… going to decommission you?”

“… Yes.”

“Jesus Christ,” Darcy scrubs at her face with her hand. “So you thought it would be a good idea to _kidnap_ me while Hydra could get the drop on you at any time?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, staring at her intensely. He does that a lot, Darcy notes. “I won’t let you get hurt,” he says lowly, “I promise.”

Darcy, suddenly feeling unnecessarily cantankerous, good mood well and truly gone, holds up her hands, where the bruises from her ride and the night before show as dark bands around her wrists. “Can you take _these_ back?”

He flinches, looking pained as he looks away and Darcy regrets her words immediately. “I’m sorry.”

And curse it all, but the man sounds so sincere it makes her heart ache. “You can’t go promising things like that, dude,” she says quietly, turning away to study the schematics herself. Darcy’s not even sure why she’s telling him this. “You’ll just end up hurting both of us. Men like you and Steve… you’d set yourselves on fire if that’s what the cause asked for.”

His metal fingers tap against the melamine bench. “Is that… is that who he was? That the kind of man he used to be?”

And Darcy knows- she just _knows_ \- that he’s not talking about Steve. “I don’t know,” she breathes, unable to look at him. “I never knew him.”

Technically not a lie, and it’s in this moment that Darcy wonders why she hasn’t told him what they are. Has said nothing about her stint in 1940s Europe and the words that wind around her wrist- though surely he’s noticed the scars and her distorted words beneath the bruises.

Maybe, she thinks, glaring at words in ruins on her skin, it’s because this man has had enough of his fate decided upon by things beyond his control. The army, her appearance and disappearance, the train, his arm, Hydra and its fall. So much of his long life has been decided for him and out of his control. Maybe she’s said nothing because she doesn’t want their words to be yet another thing made to tie him down, steal the free will he’s finally managed to reclaim.

Or maybe, the more reasonable part of her thinks- the part capable of realising how hypocritical such a decision is- it’s because she’s too much of a goddamn coward to tell him.

It’s far more likely to be that one, for sure.

 

 

 

 

They leave not long after, pausing only long enough for Darcy to pull all the data on Barnes’ arm that she can find onto a portable hard drive that he pulls from who knows where. Darcy glares at the thing in dislike; call her spoiled, but she’s not used to the commercially available drives, slower and bulkier than the ones Tony gave her.

“This would have been done five minutes ago,” she grumbles, “If you’d grabbed my tech too.”

His fingers are tapping again. By now, Darcy’s certain it’s a sign of impatience, which she finds odd, because she knows he used to be a sniper (and if he’s anything like Clint, able to shuck away his impatience like a coat). At his feet, his duffel bag is filled with pilfered tools from a lab three doors down. “Too big a risk of tracking.”

She shrugs and spins in her chair. “So? You’re on our side; it’s not like Steve is gonna shoot you on sight.”

His eyes darken. “He should. He was my mission… I can’t be near him. I _hurt_ him.”

“He doesn’t blame you, you know. Hydra _used_ you.”

Barnes stares down at the lumpy bag. ‘I’m not- I’m not good. He was my mission… I can’t be near him.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He glares at her and Darcy returns his stare, unflinching. “You’re not the Winter Soldier anymore.”

“I’m not _him_ either.”

Darcy sighs heavily, tapping her good foot on the ground. She’s surprised at how much he’s talking to her. She’d half expected him to be silent and surly the whole time (one out of two ain’t bad). “No one expects you to be. You’ve been under Hydra’s control for _seventy_ _years_. No one comes out of that shit unscathed.”

He stands, avoiding her gaze. The file transfer finishes and Darcy pulls out the hard drive. She hands it back to him and lets the virus she’d written whilst waiting for the transfer to let rip.

“No one will be able to access any of this,” she says, watching the virus tear through the systems with a vicious satisfaction. “Not even us. Not that it’ll matter in about… ten minutes.”

“Good,” Barnes grunts, nodding in satisfaction. “No good comes of Hydra.”

She huffs a laugh and stands too, leaning heavily on the stick. “Amen to that.”

They move out, as quickly as possible now that they have a time limit. Barnes pauses only long enough to take Darcy back up the stairs, and as soon as they’re outside Darcy is tearing her mask off, breathing in deeply.

“Holy shit,” she gasps, leaning heavily against the SUV. She can still smell the stench of death on her clothes and it makes her skin crawl. She wants to tear her clothes off and burn them. “You ever to that to me again Barnes, and I will skin you alive.”

He looks unimpressed by her threat. “What makes you think there’s a next time?”

Darcy laughs at him; a short, sharp thing that holds no mirth. “Why else would you take my clothes with me?”

The corner of his lips twitch in a grimace and he slips into the car. Darcy copies him, taking the front seat with only a brow raised in challenge. He doesn’t comment. “I didn’t know if you’d say yes.”

Not entirely certain how that relates to it, she hums and straps herself in. “You did kidnap me, I suppose.”

He breathes out slowly through his nose. “I needed that information.”

 “I know,” she shrugs, and watches through the side mirror as the house recedes into the distance. Barnes is really pushing on the gas now. “You’re not used to people offering you help, are you?”

He doesn’t reply, eyes trained firmly ahead and Darcy resigns herself to another silent drive.

The guttural _boom_ of the exploding Hydra base breaks through her disappointment, and she twists in her seat to watch the rising smoke. She laughs at the sight- for all that she dislikes destroying them from a stealth perspective, exploding anything is still a pretty great feeling.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen one explode,” she tells him, eyes glued to the rising plume of black smoke visible through the back window. Barnes grunts and presses his foot a little harder to the gas pedal; Darcy doesn’t blame him- it’s later afternoon; hardly the best time for them to be exploding things.

 He sends her the side-eye. “Don’t get used to it.”

Darcy rolls her eyes at him in protest and sits back properly. She’d complain about that, but it’s not as though Darcy’s got a death wish. She knows that she works best as a support character, hanging around to help leads like Steve and Jane, maybe offering a little comic relief along the way.

“I don’t remember,” he says suddenly, and Darcy starts.

“What?”

Barnes bites his lip and tosses his head, trying to get a stray lock of hair out of his face. “I don’t remember. Anyone helping me before.”

And curse it all, but there’s a tone of despair in his voice that has Darcy’s throat clenching like a vice.

“Then I volunteer,” she croaks, which is _entirely_ not what she meant to say.

Steve is going to _kill_ her.

Barnes’ eyes widen as he turns onto the one lane country highway. He sneaks another glance at her. “You shouldn’t.”

“But I am. I volunteer. To help- to do whatever it is that needs to be done.”

He caves so easily Darcy is almost suspicious. She wonders if he’s lonely; it’s been a month and a half since Shield fell, and she’s certain most of it would have been spent alone. Who knows how many nightmares he’s woken from, painfully alone.

  “I can give you back to Steve.”

She glares at him venomously. “You can’t just _give_ me back to Steve, Barnes. I’m not a thing; I am _not_ something that can be stolen or thrown away. I’m my own person, with my own thoughts and dreams, and you’d do well to remember that.”

He gapes at her, wide-eyed and shocked. “I…” he trails off, cheeks pinkening.

“The words you use here are ‘okay’ and ‘thank-you’.”

“Thank-you…” he swallows, fingers squeezing at the steering wheel. “I could… use the help.”

“Then it’s a good thing you remembered my clothes… there a chance you took my ipod, too?”

The flat stare that he sends her is answer enough. She sighs heavily.

“Yeah… I thought as much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to cutie-bug, who helped me through the hacking scene (and wholly encouraged the password bit); I am pretty much a pleb when it comes to anything to do with computers. If it were up to me, I'd have just cut-scened it, and then where would you be. Up shit creek without a paddle, that's where.  
> So Darcy's USB looks something like this  
>   
> I want one so bad.


	9. Their Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy plays with Bucky's arm. In the non-fun kind of way.

 

Darcy might just regret agreeing to help Barnes, she thinks that night.

They’re camped on the side of a road, some way off from the highway, and Darcy is quickly learning that Barnes’ idea of a luxury is a thermal sleeping bag or three and a self-inflating air mattress spread out across the flattened back seats of the SUV and little else. She eyes the makeshift bed with a heavy dose of scepticism, lit dimly by the cabin lights.

“And you’ve been sleeping in stolen cars for what- a _month_?”

He offers her a granola bar with a nonchalant shrug.

Darcy huffs a sigh and perches herself tentatively on the lip of the trunk; it smells faintly of wet dog and gasoline. She nudges his overstuffed duffle curiously as she takes a sizeable bite of the snack, hoping he’s got more to offer her than that. “So are we going to deal with your arm?”

Barnes blinks at her in surprise. “My… arm?”

Darcy sends him a look that she hopes communicates exactly how stupid he’s being. “You know, the thing you _kidnapped_ me to find information for? You want that tracker out, right? And _don’t_ tell me you were gonna do that yourself,” she snaps, cutting him off before he can interrupt. His mouth closes and he stares at the ground mulishly and Darcy just _knows_ that that is exactly what he was going to do. “We _just_ talked about this Barnes. I’m here to help, so _let_ me. Starting with that arm of yours.”

He nods slowly and Darcy sighs heavily in relief, moving further into the car so she can sit cross-legged, grimacing only a little when her ankle throbs lightly. She pats the space in front of her and he sits down awkwardly- all predator-like grace gone now that the ‘mission’ is completed, and Darcy sends him a broad smile of encouragement, even though it breaks her a little inside to see him blink at her in surprise.

“Are you sure we couldn’t stay the night at a motel?” she needles, even though she knows his paranoia is well founded. Barnes glares at her.

“Yes.”

Darcy sighs. “Worth a try,” she shrugs and nods down at his magic bag of holding. “Please tell me you at least have a computer of some kind? Something I can use to view the schematics from? I may be smart, but I’m no Tony Stark.”

Blessedly, Barnes nods slowly and Darcy heaves a sigh of relief. She doesn’t know what she’d do if he’d said no. “Behind the driver’s seat,” he says haltingly, and jumps out to grab it. Darcy takes the opportunity to rummage through his duffle, determinedly ignoring the numerous knives and handguns and inexplicably a can of deodorant inside to retrieve both the hard drive and the collection of tools he’d taken from the lab.

Not that she has much of an idea what many of them would do. Darcy has some experience with machines- her father was a mechanic with one child and she always helped Jane out making her tech- but nothing close to an engineering degree. Certainly nothing that can fully prepare her for the intricacies of a prosthetic arm. Some of the tools at least look like shinier, miniaturised versions of the ones she’d use on their van. Others appear to be disturbingly similar to dentist tools.

“There a torch in here? It’s kinda dark out.”

“Side pocket.”

She makes a soft exclamation of pleasure when her hand closes around the torch- a bright LED thing that she almost blinds herself when she foolishly turns it on whilst pointing at her face. It’ll do for anything needing fine detail, she thinks, and the grip is slender enough for her to hold in her mouth if need be.

Barnes returns, clutching a Windows tablet (Tony would disapprove), his hand snatching itself out of the way when she takes it from him, as though she burned him. Darcy pushes the lingering hurt away to process later, though she shoves the hard drive in with perhaps more force than is truly necessary.

She starts in surprise when he begins to undress, unzipping his hoodie to throw it over the back seat and peeling off his dark blue Henley. Her throat goes dry at the sight of him, top half covered only by a black wifebeater, gaze drawn to the man against her better judgement. His flesh arm is toned, shoulders broad and strong and Darcy is 100 percent willing to bet that if she tore that final piece of clothing off him, he’d be sporting a six pack to rival Steve.

She swallows thickly and tries her best to avert her gaze; the man may have her words, but he isn’t hers. “Sit down, would you?” she finds herself saying, eyes glued to the screen of the tablet as she searches for the files she needs. “Do you know how to get into the arm?”

He’s silent for a long moment and Darcy glances up at him against her better judgement. His skin looks yellow in the light cast on him by the car, face in deep shadow at he stares off into the trees. “Barnes?” Darcy says carefully, “You in there?”

He turns back to her, shaking away whatever must have been plaguing his mind. Darcy offers him a tentative smile as he sits down beside her again, facing the surrounding forest so she has the most access to his arm. He curves his flesh arm over his shoulder, pointing to a large panel that spans across his bicep and to his shoulder, overlapping the metal rim that’s fused to the flesh. “Tap on the far corner,” he rasps. “Right there. Five times, then wait two seconds, and then two times.”

She stares at him, slightly incredulous. It sounds almost too easy, though she doesn’t know how he expected to get it done himself. “Just tap on it?”

Barnes shakes his head. “It only unlocks the mechanism. Then you have to… uh-” he mimes prying it open and Darcy nods in understanding.

“Am I going to have to work out how to put it back on?”

He shrugs helplessly and Darcy sighs heavily. She can’t be mad at him though- with everything Hydra did to the man, it’s a wonder he can even talk, let alone remember how to open up the miracle of engineering that is his arm. She reaches out to touch the arm and is startled by the temperature. “It’s warm!”

He glances at her for a moment before turning back to glare as the shadowed trees. “The motors run hot.”

Darcy bites her lip at the admission and wonders exactly how hot he’s talking, before thinking better of it. Yet another thing for her to think about at a later date. She does as he says and taps on the warm metal, using her fingernail just to be sure. There is a pause and then a faint hissing sound, as of pressure being released and she watches, transfixed, as the plates along his arm seem to resettle, lifting up just the slightest. Darcy plucks what looks like a miniature screwdriver from his collection of tools and edges it beneath the panel, carefully prying it away from the arm.

Barnes lets out a slow breath when it suddenly rises, tilting off the arm as though on some kind of hinge; when she peers beneath the panel with the torch she sees that it’s held in place by tiny hydraulic arms and she lets out a low whistle. “Man, the Russians knew their shit,” she says admiringly, taking in the intricate wiring, circuitry and tiniest of glimpses into the mechanisms inside. She tilts the torch a little to get a better view. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” Barnes says shortly, and when she glances up at him in concern, the lines around his eyes and mouth are drawn in tight, as though trying fiercely to control his reaction. “Just weird. Can you see it?”

She hums, leaning in close enough that her nose is a scant few inches away from his arm. He smells faintly of axe body spray and sweat and something vaguely fruity, and Darcy shakes her head minutely to focus on the task at hand. She can just see a small, button-like protrusion, snuggled up amongst a mass of multi-coloured wiring that resembles the tracker in the schematics. She pulls up the plans to be sure, and nods in satisfaction when the location and size correlate. “I think I’ve got the tracker.”

“Get it out.”

She nods and plucks what look like a bendy pair of flat-nosed pliers (or whatever they’re called, Darcy had never been much for correct terminology, much to her father and Jane’s dismay) from their tools collection. She scoots a little closer, stoically ignoring their proximity in favour or holding the pliers and her torch as steadily as she can as she reaches down and grips the tracker. She scowls at it when it doesn’t come off immediately. “Fucking dammit,” she curses, not willing to tug too hard lest she damage something vital.

Barnes doesn’t move; only makes a soft questioning sound at the back of his throat. Darcy huffs in frustration and glances back down at the schematics. There’s no mention of how they attached the tracker. “I don’t know how to get it off,” she confesses, wishing she had more space to work in than the somewhat cramped trunk of an SUV.

“Try twisting it?”

She hums and does as he says, taking extra care not to disrupt anything. When the tracker begins to unscrew itself Darcy could almost cry with relief. “How’d you know that?”

She can just tell he’s fighting a shrug. “Lucky guess?”

Darcy hums in disbelief, but continues with her work nonetheless, unscrewing the tracker with the minutest of increments with her pliers and laughing with satisfaction when it comes out. She takes it out carefully and drops it into the outstretched palm of Barnes’ flesh hand and he crushes it between his for fingers, letting the broken pieces fall to the earth like so much trash.

“The EMP?” he asks calmly. Darcy hums and glances back at the tablet.

“I think it’s too big to remove,” she murmurs, flicking through the plans and smiling grimly at what she finds. “But we can disable it at least. It’s connected to the power source in your arm; disconnect it and it’s pretty much useless.”

“Do it.”

Darcy worries at her lip, staring at the inner workings of his arm with trepidation. There are a lot of wires in there- a lot of things that she doesn’t know what they’d do were she to fuck up. “I’ll go slow.”

He grunts, still staring out at the forest and sits perfectly still as she works. Darcy uses both hands for this work, holding the torch as steady as she can between her teeth and grimly ignoring the way it makes saliva pool in her mouth. She searches for the wires she needs, finding the EMP itself easily enough, attached to a long oblong thing embedded in the machinery that judging from the schematics runs down to his elbow, kind of like a bone. Carefully, and with as much finesse as she can muster, she disables it, thanking the lord above and all that is holy that Hydra at least had the fortitude of mind to label things extensively.

Her hands are shaking slightly when she sits back, relieved and she wipes away the small dribble of saliva that escaped her mouth. “I think I got it,” she breathes, glancing up at him. He sits motionless still, eyes closed, jaw clenched so tight Darcy’s surprised she hasn’t heard his teeth crack. “Barnes? You okay?”

He breathes out slowly. His flesh hand is clenched hard, resting against his knee.

“The asset is functional.”

Her blood runs cold, breath catching in her throat and Darcy is suddenly explicitly aware of how close she is to the man. If he were to so much as elbow her with that metal arm, she would be dead.

“Barnes,” she says, at a loss of what else she can do. “You’re not the asset anymore. You’re free; it’s 2014 **,** Hydra is dead and we’re in- I don’t actually know where we are, but there are lots of trees. Open your eyes; you see the trees?” his eyes flick open and he stares unseeingly out at the wilderness he’s stuck them in. Darcy breathes a sigh of relief that he hasn’t thought to attack her. “Good. What kind of Hydra base has trees in it, am I right?” a faint frown forms between his brows. “I want you to breathe with me, okay? In…. and out- just like that,” he does as he’s told and she smiles. “That’s good.”

He turns to look at her slowly and Darcy swallows nervously. “Hey there. Back in the world of the living?”

His eyes jump down to her trembling hand and she curls her fingers into a fist, as though somehow it will hide her anxiety. “Sorry,” he rasps and Darcy shrugs at him, smiling helplessly.

“That happen often?”

He shrugs and turns away from her, staring down at the hands resting on his knees. Darcy runs her tongue along the inside of her teeth.

“Right, well,” she sits back a little in the trunk, leaning against the wall of the car. “That’s a conversation for a later day, I guess.” Darcy nods back to his arm, “What did you want to do about those two vails? I mean, I’m guessing they’re poison- another kind of kill-switch- but I’m not 100 percent on that, and I don’t really want to poke at it and fuck it up. Beyond that, I think removing them is a little beyond my expertise.”

Barnes shrugs again. “They’re fine. Leave them.”

She levels him with a doubtful stare. “Really? What if Hydra activates them? Seems like you’d be up shit’s creek.”

“It’s fine,” he says tightly and Darcy sighs heavily, closing the panel back up carefully and putting away the tools. She hopes fiercely that decision doesn’t come back to bite either of them in the ass.

“Okay,” she sighs and pats him lightly on the shoulder. The metal is warm. She wonders if it ever cools down. It’s probably best that it doesn’t.

“Why are they scarred?”

Darcy freezes, halfway out of the trunk as her limbs lock up and she yelps, stumbling out on unsteady legs. “ _What?”_

Barnes stares at her, tired and scruffy but undeniably handsome, with too-sharp eyes boring straight into her soul. “Why are your words scarred?”

Unthinking, her hand moves to cover her wrist, the skin uneven beneath her fingers. “Jesus,” she swallows, “personal much?”

She can’t label the expression on his face, but it falls. “Oh. I- Sorry.”

“No no no- it’s fine,” Darcy sighs heavily and sits back down beside him, close enough that she can feel the heat of him, all the way down her side. “I tried to get rid of them,” she confesses, staring blindly down at her feet hanging from the trunk. And fuck it all, but it takes an unthinkable amount of bravery for her to say those words.

“Why?”

“Because… he died. Or at least, I thought he did. And I was in a really bad place. I didn’t want to look at them anymore.”

Barnes frowns, staring at the side of her head as though trying to bore a hole through her skull and steal away all of her secrets. “But they fade, don’t they? Yours are…”

“Still red, yeah,” she swallows back the urge to run from him and scream. He deserves to know. “There was pretty irrefutable proof that he’d died, though.”

“But… he’s alive? He’s back?”

Darcy smiles at him ruefully, but she finds she can’t bring herself to look at him for very long. “He is. But I don’t think he’d want me anymore.”

Barnes bites his lip, eyes glued to her wrist and Darcy offers it to him. It’s not as though the pair of them can destroy her emotionally more than they already have. His fingers run across her skin with the gentlest of pressure, and Darcy fights every shred of decency inside her that’s screaming at her to wrap and hide the carnage of words. “I’m sorry.”

Darcy breathes in sharply, feeling suddenly close to tears. “Don’t be,” she murmurs, staring at him as though she can tell him everything she’s thinking via her gaze alone. “It’s not your fault.”

He studies her face intently for a long time and Darcy tries to wipe at her eyes without being obvious that she’s doing so. After a time, his gaze returns to her wrist, and tentatively, he runs a finger across her skin. His touch lingers over the place where the just legible words of ‘the eleventh’ once stood out in sharp contrast against her skin.

“I remember… words like that,” he says haltingly, and Darcy’s heart stops in her chest, “on a woman’s wrist.”

“What woman?” she breathes, staring at him wide-eyed. Barnes frowns and a hand rises up to rub at his forehead, as though trying to dispel a headache.

“I don’t remember,” he says, frustration and despair lingering in his voice and Darcy’s chest aches. “Just red words, and- and lips like yours,” he looks at her from beneath his eyelashes, as though expecting Darcy to get angry about him. He removes his hands from her wrist and Darcy pulls her hand back, her skin all but burning from his touch. “And there was… there was something else about her… but I can’t remember. It was important, though.

“My words are like yours, though,” he says quietly, looking open and vulnerable. His flesh hand rises to rest over his ribcage in a clearly defensive posture. “Hydra tried to take them away, but- but they’re still there. Blue… like the sky at dawn.”

Her chest feels like it’s stuck in a vice and there’s a tightening in her throat, as though she’s about to throw up. She’d never seen her words on him, but the thought of Hydra trying to forcefully remove her words makes her feel physically ill. Darcy wonders if they knew they’d already met, or if they simply thought it best to cover all their bases.

With great care, Darcy reaches over to lay her hand over his. Runs her fingers across metal knuckles. He stares at the gesture, surprised, and Darcy wonders at how alien all of this must feel for him. To have gone from a weapon of Hydra to a month of solitude and now to a woman who apparently has no qualms with touching him (she does though. She does have qualms. Many of them).

Barnes huffs a soft laugh, eyes still glued to their joined hands. “I don’t think it matters anymore, though.”

“Why’s that?”

He shrugs. “She’s probably dead by now.”

Darcy is screaming internally, her mind a cacophonous whirlpool of ‘she’s not, she’s not, _she’s NOT’._

She can’t-

She can’t _do_ _this_. She _can’t_ \- it’s too hard, it hurts too much. What was she thinking, thinking this could end well?

She’s been with him less than twenty-four hours and she’s already a wreck and _God_ , but what she wouldn’t do to have Steve or Sam around right now. And she should tell him; just open her mouth and say the words ‘I’m your soulmate’. It should be easy, should be fine, but when she tries to say them, tries to confess the whole, ridiculous tale, she finds nothing in her lungs but empty air. Not a word to be found.

At a loss of what to do, plagued by her internal turmoil, Darcy removes her hand from his and stands with legs that feel wooden and ungainly.

“Who knows,” she finds herself saying, movements jerky as she picks up her walking stick. She needs to get away. Needs to find somewhere to regain her composure before she ends up spending the night with him in a small and confined space. “Maybe you’ll find her anyway.”

Barnes is silent, watching her cautiously, and- yep- Darcy _definitely_ needs to regain that composure of hers.

“I’m gonna- uh- gonna go find somewhere to use as a bathroom,” she stutters, and then she’s turning and hobbling away, the roaring in her ears too loud to catch his answering shout about something to do with toilet paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because hella yeah Bucky spent ten minutes looking like a creeper in the personal products aisle at the supermarket, just sniffing shampoos for something that smelled good.


	10. The Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feat. angst, a rude image of Steve and Sam, and a Full Breakfast with extra eggs and sausages.

Darcy doesn’t want to call what she’s doing running away, but it is exactly what she’s doing.

She at least has the sense not to actually run- she doesn’t know what time it is, but it’s pitch black out, her only light source a pale sickle moon peeking down through the canopy and the shitty LED torch, and the last thing Darcy wants is to get lost out here. Wherever _here_ is.

She goes far enough away that the light of the car is just a dim glimpse of golden light, and promptly crumples at the foot of the closest tree.

“Shit,” she breathes, eyes burning. “ _Shit_. Fucking _SHIT_.”

She curls in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees and lets herself sob quietly. Darcy didn’t know what she expected, but whatever it was, it wasn’t _this_. This unending pain in her chest, this constant mix of wonder and grief and regret and _anger_.

Because yes, she’s angry at him. Angry for catching her unawares. Angry for stealing her away. Angry for not being the man she half thought he’d be. And most of all she’s angry at herself for begrudging him any of it. He was a fucking _war prisoner_ , stuck under Hydra’s thumb for decades and Darcy is furious with herself for even _momentarily_ entertaining the thought that he’d work out how to be human again so quickly.

And beyond that- beyond the seething anger- is the shame. The regret and the guilt over everything that’s happened between them. From the moment she stepped back through that wormhole to her blatant lies-by-omission less than five minutes ago; everything she’s done has cemented in her mind her cowardice. All she’s done since she met him is run away and Darcy is so fucking _tired_.

God, but she used to think of a soulmate as a blessing. She used to be so excited about the idea of it. Of finding someone who is so inextricably yours that she never even cared about the possibility of them ending up platonic.

And here she is now; sobbing into her knees, ankle throbbing like a bitch, hiding from her soulmate because he asked her some too-hard questions.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

Darcy cries, letting herself wallow in self-pity for a good five minutes. She can’t be like this all the time- she _can’t._ She’ll go mad if everything Barnes says is going to feel like a stab wound in the chest. So she sobs her big, ugly tears, letting all of her big, ugly emotions come to the surface so she can purge them. And it feels cathartic- like every good cry does- and by the time she’s settled and the tears have receded to a constant sniffle, Darcy feels calm and strong. Not quite at peace with her situation, but certainly on the track to getting there.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been gone for when she finally wipes away the tears and the snot; she hopes it’s not been long enough for Barnes to start looking for her. She bites her lip- the skin feels chapped and tastes of salt, and Darcy heaves herself up off the ground, ankle throbbing painfully. She rests her head against the tree to take a series of steadying breaths, the rough pine bark scratchy against her forehead.

“You can do this, girl,” she murmurs and reaches out to pick up her walking stick from where she’d left it leaning against the tree. “In the end, he’s just a man.”

She finds herself laughing at that, thinking of the strong line of his shoulders and those eyes that have seen too much. ‘Just a man’ may end up being something of an understatement, she fears.

Darcy breathes out slowly, straightening as much as she can when she has to lean on her cane, and makes her way back to the SUV feeling far stronger than she’s felt in some time.

Barnes has set up camp for the night, the sleeping bags opened and spread out across the flattened trunk. Darcy eyes the sight mournfully- knowing she’s unlikely to get a good night’s sleep any time soon- but smiles when he glances up at her.

“Are you… okay?” he asks haltingly, looking almost concerned. She blinks at him in surprise, not expecting him to have said anything at all. Her eyes must be very red (and here she’d been hoping it’d be harder for him to see in the dark).

Darcy smiles at him. “It’s a hard topic,” she says truthfully and he looks down at his shoes like a bashful child.

“I’m sorry- for asking.”

“Don’t be,” she huffs, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the crying or something else entirely, but she’s feeling almost _cheerful_. “How were you to know?” he shrugs and Darcy nods at the car. “I take it we’re sharing?”

She finds that she’s not averse to the thought of them sharing the space with him. It’s not as though she doesn’t trust him- the man’s made it pretty clear that he’s not on Hydra’s side, and regardless of him kidnapping her, he hasn’t actually made any untoward advances at her, despite every opportunity to do so.

Barnes frowns down at the nest he’s made of blankets. “I didn’t have another mattress,” he says apologetically. “But I can take the front seat.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Darcy rolls her eyes and he gives her a funny look, “I don’t mind sharing- and lord knows you should probably get some real sleep. Not unless you’re going to let _me_ do some driving tomorrow.” His gaze hardens and Darcy huffs a sigh. “That’s what I thought. I run cold, besides,” she runs a perfunctory glance up and down his form, wrapped up once again in that hoodie of his. “And something tells me you’re a space heater like Steve.”

Barnes frowns at her in mild confusion but Darcy ignores him in favour of hopping awkwardly into the car, tucking her stick up against the side and burrowing herself into the sleeping bags. She is- she finds the moment she gets herself horizontal- insanely tired. Tired enough that the makeshift bed isn’t uncomfortable enough to stop her burning eyes from drooping closed when she finally finds a position that isn’t half bad. She hasn’t had sleep for close to 48 hours.

“Do whatever you want,” she slurs, tugging the sleeping bag over her head to shield her eyes from the cabin lights. “I’m going to sleep.”

Barnes doesn’t reply, and Darcy slips into unconsciousness, willing to place her trust in him for a night at least.

 

* * *

 

Darcy is warm.

It’s the first thing she notices.

Warm…. And kind of uncomfortable.

She frowns, taking stock of the situation. There’s something poking into her side, and her neck aches from the unnatural angle it’s tilted at. She’s warm, though one of her feet are cold- presumably because it’s peeking out of the nest of sleeping bags- and her left arm is numb from where she’s wrapped around a hard, warm object-

 _Ahhh shit_.

She should have known this would happen.

Experimentally, Darcy shifts the hand not crushed beneath her body and _yep_ , that’s a handful of fabric beneath her palm and the sensation of a warm, flat chest that rises and falls as Barnes breathes in deeply. His hair tickles her face, smelling faintly of that fruity scent she’d noticed before. Something like peaches, or apricot, and the thought of the terrifying man using such an innocuous shampoo makes her smile sleepily.

She really, _really_ hopes he’s still asleep.

Should have remembered to warn him about the octopus effect, Darcy thinks as she opens her eyes. It’s dark out still, hopefully early morning, but with the windows fogged up from their combined body heat, she’s no way of properly telling. She’s the big spoon in their unwitting cuddle pile, plastered up against his back and legs in her typical heat-seeking fashion, right arm wrapped around his chest as though trying to fuse him to her front. His hand rests gently over hers.

Honestly it’s a miracle he never flipped out. Darcy has no doubt in her mind about the man’s ability to kill her with just his pinky, and yet here she is, still alive and spooning up against the guy like they’ve been lovers for years. She sighs into his fruity-smelling hair, but doesn’t try to pull away. There’s something peaceful and calm about this moment, and Barnes is slightly uncomfortable but warm and he smells nice and this is probably the closest she’ll ever get to him again.

 _If you knew I was your soulmate, I could do this all the time_ , she can’t help but think, and as though sensing her melancholy and regret, his hand twitches over hers, pulling her arm over his waist a little more, like she’s a second blanket. She smiles a little, feeling off-kilter but content, burying her face into the back of her neck. She can tolerate the discomfort if they can stay like this just a little longer…

 

* * *

 

Darcy wakes again feeling cold and alone, the frigid morning air flooding the car as Barnes opens the trunk door and hops out.

She groans, hiding her head beneath the sleeping bags, the air so cold it burns her nostrils as she breathes it in. Barnes huffs a laugh and closes the door, and Darcy is alone in the car. She groans again, knowing she’s not going to get back to sleep even though it’s still dark outside. She feels… well, not well rested, but rested at least, able to face another day on the road with Mr Chatty. Darcy pushes herself up into a sitting position, sleeping bags wrapped around herself like a heavy cape.

Darcy busting for a pee, and as soon as Barnes returns and she can bring herself to leave her warm bundle, she’ll get out to relieve herself. But that time is not now, and Darcy contents herself with drawing rude words and symbols into the misted windows, giggling a little at the amorous embrace she draws stick-figure Steve and Sam engaged in. By the time Barnes returns, the car is littered in ridiculous pictures and she feels a little better about waking up in the dark, especially when she catches her companion’s bemused expression, looming on the other side of the rear window.

She draws a grumpy cat face over his, quite proud of the rendition even though Barnes only rolls his eyes and opens the door.

Darcy sucks in a sharp breath at the fresh wave of cold air that rushes in, grimacing. “What time is it?”

“Three a-m.”

She sighs heavily, breath misting and edges herself ungracefully out of the SUV. “Fucking ridiculous.”

Barnes grunts, snatching one of the sleeping bags off her pile and starts to stuff it back into its bag. Darcy takes the hint and gets out of the car, picking up her walking stick but leaving the sleeping bags behind. She whimpers at the freezing air that hits her too-warm body and limps around to the front passenger seat to pull out new clothes. She wanders off into the woody area, grateful that the sky is clear enough to let her see, even with the pathetic sliver of moon visible.

Darcy changes her sweater and undershirt quickly as she can but leaves her jeans as they are- she’ll deal with changing them later- and relieves herself before returning back to the car. Barnes leans against the vehicle, now packed and returned to its original state, windows missing her artworks. He chews on another protein bar, staring thoughtfully down at the ground and only looks up when Darcy draws in close. He pulls himself out of his slouch, striding over to hand her a bar of her own and Darcy’s stomach rumbles angrily at the gesture. She grimaces as he takes her small bundle of clothes out of her hands to pack away in the car.

“Please, please, _please_ tell me we’re stopping off at a diner to eat,” she complains, tearing into the bar with gusto. She is _starving,_ and if skipping meals is normal for Barnes, then he’s got another thing coming to him if she’s going to stick around.

He shrugs, slamming the trunk door closed. “If you want to.”

“If I want to….” She repeats, mildly outraged at his lack of care. “ _Dude_ , you can’t just live off protein bars.” He shoots her a disapproving frown but Darcy carries on unaffected. “You’re a fucking _super soldier_. You have an advanced metabolism! You need to eat at _least_ five times a day! Like, proper meals, with proteins and carbs and fat!”

He scowls at her. “I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?” she scowls right back. “Forgive me if I’m somewhat doubtful of that.”

He glares at her, jaw setting in a _very_ familiar (read: Steve-like) way. “We’ll stop at a diner.”

She breathes out heavily, feeling like they’re stuck in a Mexican standoff. “And a supermarket.”

The glare is replaced with a look of disbelief. “What _for?_ ”

“To buy some food,” she says with a healthy roll of her eyes. “I get that you probably don’t want to stay in such a public place for any great length of time, but I will _not_ allow you to starve yourself unnecessarily. So your choices are diners, or supermarkets.”

“It’s full of security cameras!”

“So send me in alone if you don’t want to get caught on them! I know how to stay out of cameras; I’m not useless.” He sends her a curious look and Darcy shrugs, moving around to the passenger side and hopping in. Barnes joins her a moment later. “I have friends in high places. They like to teach me shit.”

More specifically, she has friends who are former spies for Shield, with a vested interest in keeping her alive and a sadistic kink for teaching her the hard way. But that’s beside the point.

Barnes sighs heavily as he turns the SUV on, putting the car into gear. He hasn’t bothered turning on the headlights and Darcy is relieved that he at least as the brains to drive slowly. “Fine,” he growls, shooting her a dark look as he pulls back onto the dirt road. Darcy smiles at him sweetly. “But you’ll get half an hour, and no more. You take longer than that and I’m coming in. With guns.”

Darcy rolls her eyes but chooses not to argue with his dramatics. “Fine… Do you have pen and paper anywhere? I’ll start a shopping list.”

Barnes shrugs, flicking on the headlights as they near the highway. Darcy can just see the golden lights of a semi-trailer speeding past. “Try the glovebox.”

She does. There’s an open pack of cigarettes, a yellowing drivers manual and a large collection of gas receipts, six digit numbers scrawled across every one of them. Some of them are so old that the receipt ink has faded to nothing and Darcy fishes around for a pen before spying one amongst the CDs packed into the compartment between the seats. She smiles in victory when her testing scribble works and props her good foot up against the dash so she has something to lean against.

“So Barnes,” she hums, tapping her pen on her thigh, “What’s your opinion on wraps?”

The incredulous look he sends her is enough to have Darcy giggling for a good five minutes.

 

* * *

 

“You know, after everything said and done, there’s one thing I gotta ask, Barnes.”

The man in question looks up from his full breakfast, with extra eggs and sausages (Darcy’s suggestion). He’s been working his way though it for the last ten minutes or so, and really, for a guy with his metabolism, he sure as hell eats real slow. Darcy’s not going to complain though. She’s just glad to be out of that car. He chews his mouthful of bacon slowly, swallowing before he bothers to reply. “What?”

Darcy sips her OJ through her straw, watching him thoughtfully. “Why’d you trust me?”

He frowns at her and rests his knife and fork carefully down against the plate. “What do you mean?”

“Well, why take me in the first place? You didn’t know me; had no reason to trust me. What made you go ‘fuck it, she’ll do’ and kidnap me?”

Barnes winces slightly at the k-word, eyes glued to his food. “Because… _he_ trusts you.”

“Who- Steve?”

He flinches at the name, but nods nonetheless. “Yes.”

Well.

As answers go, it’s as good as any, she supposes.

Darcy stares down at her hands. Her bruises peek out from beneath the sleeves of her sweater. It’s a little too warm inside the diner to merit wearing it and she’d been forced to borrow Barnes’ antiperspirant to stop herself from reeking, but she’s still sweating. She’d give anything to shove the sleeves up to her elbows, but the bruises are too conspicuous- too much a sign of abuse to risk it. “What do you remember? Of him?”

Barnes stares into his half-eaten breakfast as though it houses all the secrets of the universe within it. “Enough,” the lines about his eyes tighten. “Never had much, but the damn punk would always save a little something for this stray cat.” He smirks slightly, shooting Darcy a glance before picking up his cutlery again. “The thing was ugly as sin and hated everyone, but he’d leave it a plate of food anyway. Used to think his heart was too big for such a little guy.”

Darcy smiles at the thought. “I can’t imagine Steve being so small… he always seems larger than life.”

The man shrugs and loads up another forkful of bacon, grilled tomato and scrambled egg. “He was trouble… Always getting’ himself into fights over something or other.”

“That hasn’t changed.”

Something flashes behind his eyes. “Guess that serum couldn’t fix everything.”

“I guess not,” Darcy snickers and shovels another forkful of syrup-soaked pancakes into her mouth. She taps the table, another thought occurring to her. “How did you find us, anyway? You’re not exactly tech-savvy.”

Barnes scowls at her. “I know enough,” he growls defensively. “Enough to track you three. You weren’t exactly being as subtle as you think you were.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at him. “Houston _was_ you, wasn’t it?” They came across Houston two weeks ago. A small warehouse on the outskirts of town, it was meant to be easy to take down. They’d turned up to find the place empty, the bodies on the ground several days old and the remnants of some kind of mechanical chair ripped to pieces. They’d suspected, but had no real way of telling. “You what, stuck around after you’d brought it down, waited for us to turn up?”

Barnes shifts slightly in his chair and Darcy grins.

“I got you there, didn’t I?”

He pokes his tongue into his cheek. “Figured you’d show up eventually… Guessed you’d come across it sooner or later; it was in the direction you were travelling.”

Darcy hums and takes another bite of her pancakes. “We weren’t really looking for you, you know. Not really. I mean, Steve wanted to, but Sam and I figured you’d turn up when you were ready. On your own terms.” She huffs a laugh at the thought. They were right about that, at least.

The assassin breathes out heavily through his nose, gaze lingering on the cuffs of her sweater before returning to his food. Darcy smiles ruefully; she’s slowly getting used to his mercurial moods- broody but chatty one moment, sullen and silent the next. She finds she doesn’t mind it so much, though she’s far from working out what triggers the changes in mood.

They finish their meals in silence, and Darcy feels full and content when he steers her back to the SUV, his flesh hand touching her elbow lightly as they exit the diner. The contact sends little thrills up and down her spine, even though he snatches his hand away the moment they’re close to the car.

It’s progress, she thinks, and considering the circumstances, she’s grateful to even have that.


	11. The Supermarket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy tries her own hand at subterfuge...

Darcy is trying for nonchalance.

It’s stupid. She _knows_ it’s stupid, but Darcy can’t shake the feeling she’s being watched, like every other shopper’s eyes are trained on her as she walks into the Safeway Barnes has dropped her off at, ominous warning still in place. She walks quickly, hoping her strides come across as more purposeful than they feel, and keeps her gaze level beneath her fringe, face expressionless but not hostile, just like Natasha taught her, months ago now.

She fingers at the folded up shopping list in the pocket of her jeans- though she’s already memorised it- and when she walks through the automatic doors, she pretends to look at the paper, running her thumb over each of the words; _wraps, salami, deodorant, hair dye,_ among other things. Darcy picks up a basket and heads for the fresh produce section, keeping her eyes peeled for security cameras.

There’s one above the milk and she bites her lip as she moves towards it. She keeps her head down as she stands in front of the dairy section, her free hand creeping down to touch the slip of paper from her pocket.

Darcy checks her peripherals, but the area is too crowded to risk it. She hovers in front of the milk, feigning indecision before slumping her shoulders and turning, glancing upwards right at the security camera as she does. She smiles at the camera- just a little thing as she walks on, keeping her gaze directed upwards for a good three seconds before pretending to be distracted by her shopping list.

Darcy’s heart is beating so fast at the move she’s surprised her fellow shoppers can’t hear it, and she keeps her head down as she picks up everything she needs, pausing only when she hits the personal hygiene aisle. Here she hovers at the deodorant, pretending she’s studying the supermarket’s selection carefully. The red light of another security blinks down at her but she spares it only a cursory glance.

Heart in her throat, Darcy dips her hand into her pocket and pulls out her slip of paper- one she’d written carefully on when she’d used the restroom in the diner. With the same hand, she picks up a deodorant can, eyes running across the words without really reading it. She pretends it’s not what she wants and returns it to the shelf, tucking the folded piece of paper up into the metal lip of the shelf above, breathing an internal sigh of relief when the paper doesn’t flutter down to the ground.

Satisfied, Darcy plucks her favoured antiperspirant from the shelf and leaves. Her hands shake only a little as she hands over the cash Barnes gave her, but if the bored teenager serving her notices, she doesn’t say anything.

She’s out with five minutes to spare, feeling giddy about her rebellion, but also oddly guilty, like she’s betrayed Barnes’ trust.  

She has, in a way, but Darcy knows that the only chance to stop Steve from coming after either of them- and do his own job- is by leaving him a message.

Darcy only hopes he’ll find it. And soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a really short update right now, but I PROMISE there'll be a follow up chapter to this tonight (morning if you're in America) :) Posting them as separate though, because the narrator changes (YES I am finally putting up something from Sam and Steve's perspective).


	12. The Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We interrupt this broadcast with a message from our favourite heroes; the Falcon and his trusty sidekick, Captain America.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So timeline wise, this chapter actually occurs about two days prior. Yes folks, this is the long awaited Sam/Steve POV!!!! Yay ^.^

Sam is hoping Darcy will quit the bitching act soon.

Not that he minds, really. He gets why she’s pissed; understands the need to feel useful, and she’d been so damn _excited_ when Steve finally let her come on a raid with them. He gets why she’s unusually bitchy over the comms that night, and he lets her acerbic comments and biting wit slide right over him. She’ll accept that she’s benched for the time being soon enough, and this whole episode will just wash right over them.

Steve, unfortunately, is not so fortunate, and for whatever reason seems to be taking her shitty attitude to heart. The ride back to the motel is filled with tense silences and short remarks that leave Sam wishing he could bash his head against a wall.

“She’ll get over it,” he says finally, feeling somewhat irritated by his soulmate.

Steve sighs loudly, fingers tightening on the steering wheel and Sam rests a comforting hand on his upper thigh. “I just… forgot how… unpleasant she can be,” he says lowly, lip twitching slightly in amusement. “There used to be this guy- worked in finance or something. Darcy _hated_ him… I think he tried hitting on her at some point and messed it up. Natasha and I always kind of enjoyed watching how ruthless and irreverent she’d get, when she wanted to.”

Sam snorts, completely unsurprised. “I’m not sure if it’s Natasha being the bad influence there or you.”

Steve scoffs in mock-outrage. “You think _I_ was the bad influence? Captain America, the paragon of virtue?”

Sam rolls his eyes and punches the other man in the arm. “Considering how much mister paragon of virtue likes being marked up, forgive me if I’m not willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Steve coughs, cheeks turning pink and Sam grins, settling a little more comfortably in his seat. “She’ll get over it,” he repeats, leaving his hand on Steve’s should for a moment longer than is strictly necessary, revelling in the fact that he _can._ Steve’s flesh is warm and firm, and the man leans into Sam’s touch in a way that he finds extremely gratifying. “You’ll see, Steve. Give her a night to sleep on it and she’ll be right as rain.”

Steve offers him a brief smile and Sam removes his hand, fishing out his phone from his pocket. Gotta burn his time somehow.

 

* * *

 

They return to a darkened motel room, curtains drawn in tight and all the lights turned off. Sam has to take a moment to adjust to the absence of Darcy; she normally greets them at the door, and Sam is used to watching the look of anxiousness on her face morph into one of pleased relief when they come through the door whole and hale. It feels oddly jarring not to see her sitting at the wobbly table waiting for them, but it’s easy enough to chalk up to the night’s sour note. He figures she’s just gone to bed.

He sighs heavily, toeing off his boots and leaving them paired neatly beside the front door. Steve- the messier of the two, as always- kicks off his own, leaving them where they fall as he tugs off his jacket and runs a hand through his hair. He spares a rueful glance at the closed door of Darcy’s bedroom but walks past it, moving straight for the bathroom to shower. Sam sighs again and collapses into the chair, slouching down in the poorly padded piece of furniture as far as he can go.

The faint sounds of the shower starting up reach his ears and Sam lets his eyes close. Lets his breathing even out, long and slow. He’d join Steve, but he knows it’ll inevitably lead to more- and so sue him- but he feels unusually tired. Probably because of Darcy’s wake-up call the night before. It’s kind of tempting to go straight to bed, but he knows he stinks of sweat and gunpowder and worse things.

He must drift off, because the next thing he knows, Steve’s standing before him, smelling of generic hotel soap and deodorant, hair dripping slightly onto his bared shoulders. He’s smiling down at Sam with a fondness that makes his heart jump uncomfortably in his chest. God, he is so in love with this man it’s appalling.

“Hey,” he rasps, and takes one of Steve’s freakishly big hands in his.

Steve blinks at him, and the smile grows larger. “Hey.”

“Feel better?”

Steve nods and runs his thumb over Sam’s knuckles, bending down to brush his lips over his skin. Sam’s breath catches in his throat, stomach swooping. He half expects a disgusted groan from Darcy to sound, but the room is silent but for their combined breathing and the quiet hum of the mini-fridge. “Much,” Steve says lowly. “You gonna have a shower?”

Sam bites the inside of his cheek. “I am.”

Steve hums and drops his hand to cup Sam’s face, and his breath escapes him in one big rush as the larger man leans down to press their lips together. He sighs into the kiss, resting his hands on the bare skin of Steve’s waist and squeezes when his lover huffs, turning the kiss a little deeper and dirtier. Sam groans and pushes him away- or as well as he can- before he can be convinced to do something other than shower and sleep tonight.

“Go to bed, you tease,” he growls and Steve grins at him unabashedly. Sam pushes at his stomach and the super soldier snickers quietly, letting Sam push him away to stand- groaning- and make his way over to the bathroom.

“You sure you wanna do that, flyboy?”

Sam stops, turning around to glare at Steve, who is not so subtly showing off his muscles, one arm stretching behind his head to ‘scratch’ at the back of his neck. “I know what you’re doing, soldier.”

“Is it working?”

He narrows his eyes as Steve sends him his most guileless look, somehow managing to look at him from _under_ his eyelashes.

And Sam tries hard. He tries _very_ hard not to fall into temptation.

Sam fails.

 

* * *

 

Sam wakes- as always- to Steve rolling away from him, getting up bright and early (well, not quite, but it _feels_ early when their usual bedtime is around four in the morning) and ready to start the day with a disgustingly chipper run. Sam breathes out slowly, taking the time to appreciate the strong lines of Steve’s back and the sharp definition of muscles as he sits up, shirtless, at the edge of the bed.

“Morning,” he mumbles, and Steve twists to send him a smile. The twist and flex of his skin feels sinful to watch at this time of morning.

“Ready for a run?”

Sam groans, flopping his arm over his eyes and grimaces; he knew he shouldn’t have given into Steve. At least he had the fortitude to have a shower _afterwards_. “Wasn’t last night enough exercise for you?”

Steve, the incorrigible asshole that he is, just laughs at him. “Not even a little.”

Sam peeks at the blonde from under his arm. “You saying I ain’t enough for you, Rogers?”

He blinks at Sam innocently and sometimes Sam forgets how much of a shit Steve Rogers really is. “Never.”

Sam’s eyes narrow and he pulls his arm down completely. “Nu-uh Rogers. You ain’t fooling no one here. Why don’t you take a day off from the early morning workout thing, huh? Live a little.”

Steve pouts at him, but then seems to think better of it, turning around fully to crawl over to Sam. Sam’s eyes widen in sudden realisation of what he wants to do instead. “Oh- no! I didn’t mean that!” he yelps, rolling away and off the bed completely, landing on the crappy commercial carpet with a loud and heartfelt ‘oof’.

There’s a moment of silence, and then Steve’s laughter fills the room, loud and raucous and undoubtedly waking Darcy and every other poor bastard in a two mile radius. Sam glares up at the plaster ceiling- it’s been badly joined in places- and tries to catch his breath.

Steve peers over the side of the bed, snickering. “You okay there?”

“Shut the hell up, Rogers,” Sam growls, and Steve starts laughing all over again. He raises his arm, high enough to send his soulmate the bird and if anything, that just spurs him on. “Yeah, yeah; laugh it up, asshole,” he grumbles, and picks himself up.

Steve is sprawled across the bed, snickering like an idiot, red in the face and clutching his sides and Sam is half surprised that Darcy isn’t banging on the walls and grumpily yelling at them to shut the hell up. Steve smirks at him from the crumped bedspread and Sam fetches a shirt from his night bag.

“I didn’t think I was that undesirable,” he chuckles and Sam flips him the bird again as he leaves the room.

The living area is empty; Darcy’s tablet still sitting on charge on the table, a mug with remnants of coffee beside it. He shakes his head at the sight, picking up the cup to dump it in the sink, filling the electric kettle with water and readying three spare mugs with instant coffee- double shot and three sugars for Darcy- four for Steve- like the utter heathens that they are.

He bangs on Darcy’s door, the sound of the heating kettle growing steadily louder. “Water’s boiling, Darce!” he says loudly. There’s no answering groan and he rolls his eyes, banging on the door again. One of the downsides to having late mornings is that they have very little time to laze around the motel. “C’mon girlie; you got more sleep than I did, so up and at ‘em!”

There’s a snort from behind him as Steve leaves their room, moving to the mini-fridge to take out the milk and cereal and filling his bowl with muesli.

Still no answer from Darcy’s room and Sam frowns. He knocks again- there’s no reason for her to be giving them the silent treatment. “Darcy?” he tries again.

Silence.

He swallows, resting his hand on the door handle. Something’s wrong- he doesn’t know what, but he _knows_ something is up. “I’m gonna open the door, Darcy. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

No answer.

Steve- sensing something is wrong- abandons his breakfast on the kitchenette bench and joins him. They share a concerning look before Sam opens the door.

It’s quiet inside, the curtains drawn tight over the windows. Beneath the bedcovers is a vaguely Darcy-shaped lump, but she makes no sign that she’s even noticed they’re there. Sam moves forwards, putting a hand on where he thinks her shoulder should be and recoils when his hand sinks into the form, pulling in a shocked breath. He curls his hand around the cover and tugs it back as far as it will go.

Pillows, arranged into a vague body shape.

Sam feels like his insides have been pulled out of him via his throat.

Empty.

Her bed is _empty_.

“ _No_ ,” Steve breathes, shoving past Sam to tug the covers down all the way. “No nonono _no!_ ”

Sam feels frozen in place; stuck to the ground as he watches his soulmate frantically throw the pillows away, searching the bed- and then her room for something- _anything_.

 _Her bag is gone_ , Sam notes dumbly as Steve’s curses turn colourful. He upends the cabinet beside her bed, letting the desk lamp fall to the ground with a dull _thump_. The sound breaks whatever spell Sam found himself in and he stumbles out of the room, staggering over to lean heavily against the table. It rocks dangerously beneath his weight but Sam can’t bring himself to care.

Gone.

 _Darcy is gone_.

Steve explodes out of Darcy’s room, wide-eyed and pale. “I don’t understand,” he says, frantic. The man moves to the bathroom, all but tearing the door off its hinges to check, but it’s as empty as her bedroom. “Darcy?” he calls, exiting the bathroom to open the front door. “ _Darcy?_ ” he bellows.

Sam watches him in a state of shock, already certain that she’s nowhere to be found. He collapses into one of the chairs, heart thundering in his chest like it’s trying to rip itself apart. Sam half fancies he wouldn’t mind.

They’ve lost her.

Oh _God_.

They’ve _lost_ her.

Natasha is going to fucking _kill_ them. She’ll make it slow and painful, he knows, and Sam doesn’t even care because _Christ_ but they’ll deserve it. How long has she been missing for? At least six hours, because Sam just _knows_ that she’s likely been gone since last night, sometime between their wrap up call and them arriving. And he feels sick to his stomach at the thought of the way they’d ended the mission last night; of the sour note their raid ended with, and their casual dismissiveness of her absence when they’d come home. He doubts she’s even been in the town, by then.

Outside, he can hear Steve calling her name; as if that is of any use to them anymore. Wherever she is, he’d bet his wings she’s long gone from here by now.

“Shit,” he murmurs, despair and anger welling up inside him in an insurmountable wave. “Fucking _shit!_ ” he curses, and upends the table with an almighty crash.

Darcy’s tablet flies at the wall and clatters to the ground. One of the chairs half-breaks the table’s fall, splintering apart with little resistance. There are several discoloured lumps of gum stuck to the underside of the chipboard, Sam notes distractedly as he lets out an incoherent cry of rage, air suddenly hard to come by, and kicks at the table again, succeeding only in stubbing his bared toes. He’s already regretting the uncharacteristic loss of control, but he hasn’t been this scared and furious and helpless since Riley.

He wipes at his face, covering his eyes and concentrates on breathing in deep and slow. His hands are shaking. His toes throb. Sam half wishes he could just return to the simplicity of twenty minutes ago. He starts pacing, possibilities running through his head as he tries to work out a plan of attack.

Something crumples underfoot and Sam starts, glancing down. He’s trod on a piece of paper- probably fell to the ground from his table flipping. He bends to pick it up and his eyes widen as he reads what’s written on the page.

“Steve?” he calls out, moving over to the front door on unsteady legs. “Steve, you’re gonna want to see this!”

Steve’s at the far end of the motel complex doing who knows what but he turns at Sam’s call, jogging back to him on bare feet that Sam winces in sympathy for. “What is it?” he asks, breathless as soon as he’s in hearing distance and Sam holds out the paper. Steve sucks in a sharp breath when he takes it from him.

“Found it on the floor… I think they left it for us beneath her tablet.”

He glances up at Sam, eyes a little wild. “But that’s-”

“I swear to God, Rogers. If you say ‘that’s impossible’ you’ll be sleeping on the couch for a month.” Something hardens in Steve’s eyes and Sam almost regrets what he said. But they have bigger things to worry about that ruffled feathers right now. “Obviously we weren’t as far under-the-radar as we thought we were.”

“We need to call Natasha.”

Sam swallows thickly. That is exactly what he _doesn’t_ want to do, because the woman will _eviscerate_ them. If they’re lucky. “And Stark, while we’re at it.”

Steve nods decisively, and hands the note back to Sam, pulling out his phone as he strides back into the motel room. “I’ll call Natasha, you call Stark.”

Sam breathes a momentary sigh of relief, for once not calling Steve on his martyr-like behaviour because _like hell_ does he want to be the one to bear the bad news to the master assassin. He glances down at the paper, looking crumpled and dirty now, and wonders exactly what kind of mess Darcy has gotten herself into.

Scrawled messily across the lined paper in black biro, are the words:

_She’s safe. Don’t look for us._

_J.B.B._

 


	13. The Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gives a spider a short call. It goes better than it could have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a short chapter again, but I'm working diligently on the next one with Darcy, so you can expect to see it up in the next few days ^.^

Natasha picks up on the fifth ring.

“Romanoff.”

Steve swallows and chooses the lesser of two evils and confesses to the mess right off the bat. “We lost her.”

There is a long and heavy silence on the other side of the line. “I’m sorry. For a moment there I thought you said you’d lost Darcy.”

Steve covers his eyes with his hand, unable to look at Darcy’s empty room or the trashed table. “She’s gone, Natasha,” God, but Steve hasn’t felt this close to tears since Bucky died. “Darcy’s gone. Her stuff, her shoes-”

“ _When_.”

“Last night, I think.”

There’s the sound of something crashing and Steve winces. “You _think?_ Rogers, _you explain yourself,_ right now, or you will wish you had never been defrosted.”

“I don’t know, Tasha! We raided a Hydra base last night, but Darcy had to stay at the motel again ‘cause she sprained her ankle. When we came home we’d just thought she’d gone to bed.”

“And you didn’t think to _check_ on her? Rogers, you been running a vigilante **black ops** mission for the last month and a half! Did you really think you wouldn’t draw attention to yourselves? She shouldn’t have been left at the motel at all!”

Steve collapses into the sofa, feeling like an absolute fool. “We shouldn’t have,” he agrees, feeling sorry for himself and hating that he feels that way at all. “I’m sorry, Nat. There’s no good reason for losing her.”

“You’re _damn right_ ,” Natasha growls at him and he breathes out shakily. “And when I find you two, you’d better fucking _hope_ that shield of yours can withstand armour-piercing bullets. Do you know who took her?”

Steve stares at his bare feet- dirty, after his run through the car lot. “Bucky,” he confesses. “He- he left a note.”

Natasha erupts into a long and violent-sounding string of Russian and the sound of crashing intensifies. Steve cringes away from the cell phone, holding away from his ear at a particularly loud crash. “ _Barnes?_ ” Natasha all but shrieks, and it’s the most emotive Steve thinks he’s ever heard her. He is so very dead. “You let _the Winter Soldier_ \- amnesiac, psychopathic assassin- her _soulmate_ \- steal her?” she breaks off into more indecipherable Russian, vehemently cursing who knows what.

“He’s not that bad, Nat; he wouldn’t hurt her, I know it.”

“I don’t give a rats ass what you think about him, Steve! The guy beat you half to death! He’s unstable, with more Hydra conditioning riddled through that brain of his than you can poke a stick at! We both read the file- you _know_ what he could do to her!”

“He wouldn’t-”

“One moment is _all_ it takes,” she hisses, her rage a thing to behold even halfway across the country. “One moment and she’s gone. No more Darcy. You need to stop letting those rose-coloured nostalgia glasses cloud your vision, Steve. One lapse in judgement- one regression and Darcy is as good as _dead_.”

“Natasha-”

“ _No_ , Rogers. You don’t get to ‘ _Natasha’_ me with that voice. You _lost_ her! Darcy! The talented civilian who I _trusted_ you to keep safe!”

He clenches his hand in his sleeping pant. “I know,” he breathes. “I _know_ , and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to cut it,” Natasha says bluntly.

“I _know_. And you can castigate me all you want later-”

“Oh Rogers,” Natasha laughs bitterly. “What I do to you will be _nothing_ compared to what _Jane_ will do.”

Steve blanches at the thought. He’d never told Darcy, but about two days into their vigilante road trip, the diminutive scientist had called him and layered on more than a few disturbingly detailed descriptions of what she would do to him if any harm came to Darcy. “And I’ll deserve every last moment of it,” he agrees, because there isn’t really much else he can do. “But right now I need your help, Natasha. We have to find her.”

“You’re right,” the woman says grudgingly. She sounds far away, as though putting him on speakerphone, and he hears something like a bag being unzipped. “What makes you think she’s with Barnes in the first place?”

“He signed the note.”

“What, with his _name?_ ”

Steve clears his throat uncomfortably, and stands up again, deciding it’s probably for the best to start packing himself. “His initials. I think he must have been tracking us since Houston.”

Natasha hums, all business now. “That base that was already ransacked? Tell me about everything that happened since then; and I mean _everything_ , Rogers. Don’t leave anything out.” The tone of her voice brooks no argument, and Steve is uninteresting in giving her one, so he does. When he’s done, Natasha is quiet for a time, contemplative. “He left the shield there the night before.”

“What?”

Natasha makes a soft sound of irritation. “The shield. I’d bet you he left your shield in front of her door for her to trip over. If he was after her then it stands to reason that he’d try to separate you.”

Steve’s blood runs hot and cold at the thought of Bucky creeping through their motel rooms, intent on finding away to get the three of them far enough apart that he could steal Darcy. “But I don’t- why would he take her? Do you- do you think he knew they were soulmates?”

Natasha snorts. “I doubt it; I doubt he remembers much of anything.”

Steve swallows back his rising nausea. “Then he wanted her for her hacking skills?”

“Could be,” Natasha hums. “Our Darcy is a talented girl. Could be he just wants to take her out of the picture. Without Darcy you’re just two soldiers with some fancy tech- it’d be far harder for you two to find him that way.”

Steve frowns. “But that seems counter intuitive, don’t you think? Wouldn’t he know that we’d double our efforts to go after him that way?”

“Maybe he just wanted to get to you.”

Steve sighs heavily and rubs his face again. He doubts that’s the case, but Natasha is right when she says Darcy’s in danger in Bucky’s company. “We need to find her.”

“You’re damn right we need to find her. And fast, before someone gets hurt; best case scenario, Barnes is unstable. Stark’s already searching the cctv around the motel, looking for any vehicles Barnes may have used to get her out of there. In the meantime, you two can stay where you are- I’m coming for you, ETA four hours.” 

“Four hours!” Steve splutters. “But Nat, you’re on the other side of the country!”

“ETA four hours, Rogers. We’ll talk then.”

She hangs up, leaving Steve to wallow in his bad decisions and regrets.


	14. The Mints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bucky is a mint fiend and Darcy is appalled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a gap of about a day in between time jumps in this chapter, just so you're aware :)
> 
> Sorry this update is a lot later than promised; I got distracted by a new fic :I It's up on AO3 already (called Astraea)- the first 3 installments anyway. You should check it out :P Next update is tomorrow! ^.^

Barnes picks her up right out the front of the Safeway. Darcy finds in eerie that he knows exactly when she’s be out in order to pull up right in front of her, but it’s not something she’s going to spend any time dwelling on. She dumps their groceries in the back seats and hops in the front, moving quickly as several cars begin queuing behind them.

He’s found them a new car; another SUV. Somewhat on the old side, it has the look of a car that’s been well-used but not maintained, and the floor of the passenger seat is dirty and littered with assorted fast food wrappers. Darcy wrinkles her nose at the sight of them; Jane used to do exactly the same thing.

“Where’d you pick this one up from?” she asks, buckling herself in as he drives out of the parking lot. Barnes just shrugs and doesn’t answer, and Darcy decides she’s better off no knowing. She twists in her seat instead, reaching back to fetch the little tin of mints she’d bought out of the grocery bag. She peels off the plastic with relish and sighs happily at the strong scent of peppermint that fills the car.

Barnes spares her a glance, frowning at the tin. “That wasn’t on your list.”

She shrugs, uncaring, and pops a mint into her mouth. “I was craving them. So sue me,” she rattles the box at him, grinning. “Want one?”

He sticks out his hand without comment and Darcy blinks in surprise. She’d not expected him to actually ask for one, but she dishes him out two anyway and he puts them both in his mouth with a soft hum of thanks. Darcy smiles at the obvious sign of trust and tucks the mints into the little compartment between the seats. It’s full of CDs and she grins, pulling them out to browse through.

“So where to next?”

The assassin taps his fingers on the steering wheel, navigating easily through the town. “Denver,” he grunts.

Darcy chews on that little nugget of information. She doesn’t remember anything in their information about Denver. “Another base?”

He hums. “There’s a research base there. I want you to activate the self-destruct.”

Darcy bites her lip, suddenly nervous. “Is it gonna be full of dead people too?”

Barnes lifts one shoulder up in a half-assed shrug. “Probably. By the end of it.”

Darcy takes a moment to think about how fucked up her life is not that she feels relief to know they at least they’ll only be recently dead. Once upon a time, all this killing would have disgusted her. Now all she feels is an odd sense of detachment and a faint feeling of satisfaction, and the knowledge troubles her. _God,_ but even Natasha tries her hardest to kill only when absolutely necessary.

She swallows, nudging the mint into the pocket of her cheek so she can speak. “Barnes,” she says slowly and he glances at her in acknowledgement. “Could you… this time, do you think you could possibly not kill absolutely all of the Hydra goons?”

Barnes sends her an incredulous look. “Honey, they’re _Hydra._ ”

Something in Darcy’s traitorous chest jumps at the endearment, and she ruthlessly tamps it down to deal with at a later date. She shrugs at him helplessly. “If you were looking to ever clear your name, after all of this is over, don’t you think having a record that’s _not_ drenched in the blood of your enemies would help? You know, if you _wanted_ to prove that you’re not a mindless killer.”

He flinches at that, and Darcy momentarily regrets having said anything at all. But it needs to be said; Barnes can’t just run across the countryside killing anyone he pleases. And she has a very strong feeling that no one- including his own conscience- has ever stopped to _tell_ him that. Not that it’s surprising; she can’t imagine he’s had terribly much healthy human contact since he escaped Hydra’s control. The thought hurts, more than she gives it credit for.

Darcy watches him carefully, and swallows back the sudden onset of nausea that the mint does nothing to help as his expression turns confused. “Have you even thought about that you’ll do after Hydra’s gone?”

The man sets his jaw, glaring out at the road and the car in front. “I figured I’d turn myself into Steve. Let him decide.”

Darcy stares at the stack of CDs in her hands. As plans go, it’s hardly the worst one she can think of, but it still feels an awful lot like he’s just expecting to change one set of manacles for the next.

A hand enters her vision, and Darcy blinks at it, mildly confused.

“Mint,” Barnes says in explanation, and Darcy gapes at him, surprised and appalled.

“Did you just _chew_ those mints?” he shrugs and Darcy shakes her head. “You realise mints aren’t meant for chewing, right? You’re meant to suck on them.”

He sends her an odd look, and Darcy sighs in dismay, reaching into the side compartment to pick out the tin. “You utter heathen.”

Barnes raises an eyebrow and pops the new mint she offers him into his mouth, chewing loudly and conspicuously on the sweet. Darcy stares at him in horror. “You always this dramatic?” he asks with a rakish grin. Darcy shakes her head in disgust.

“Only when my kidnapper’s being an asshole.”

He barks out a laugh at that, and quick as lightning steals the mint tin out of her hand. She squawks in surprise and outrage. Barnes grins at her, and tips several of the mints into his mouth. Darcy pulls a face. “And lose the chance to see you in a snit? Not a chance in hell.”

She pouts at him, and snatches the tin back out of his hand, fingers brushing over his mostly on accident. She’s starting to get the feeling she know exactly where Steve learnt to troll from.

 

* * *

 

Darcy sighs heavily, twitching her feet resting on the dash to get some of the feeling back into her toes. The car is cold, but she’s too wired to catch some shut-eye; too on edge to close her eyes and let herself sleep. She plays with the empty tin of mints instead, needing to find _something_ to do with her hands; Barnes, as it turns out, is an incorrigible mint fiend.  The pack had been lucky to last four hours yesterday, and when they’d stopped for gas she’d made him buy two packs- one for each of them. He’d returned with three.

She’s been stuck in the car for hours now; or at least it feels like it, stuck on an empty suburban street beside a small park with no form of entertainment bar a few dog-eared action books she finds in the back while she waits for Barnes to return. Not that the books are of much use when he’s parked them just out of range of the streetlights. She’d turn on the cabin light, but it’s too obvious a marker for even Darcy to risk.

Instead, she tries to whittle away her time thinking of the various ways she can let Steve and Sam know she’s safe without clueing Barnes into what she’s doing. The little trick she pulled at the Safeway yesterday is one thing, but there’s no guarantee it’ll bring much fruit, if at all. They could miss her footage completely, or never go to the store, or fail to find her note or-

No. She can’t rile herself up like this. She needs to keep a level head.

Darcy breathes in deeply, and hitches the sleeping bag up a little higher around her neck. She takes to studying the street; it’s nothing special, just a few secluded houses on the outskirts of town, their windows all darkened and their occupants asleep. She doesn’t know how far away the Hydra base actually is; Barnes never bothered to tell her, just disappeared into the dark without even a glint from his arm for her to see him by. She sighs again and grimaces, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She really hopes he doesn’t want them to sleep in the car _again_ ; she’s fairly certain she’ll go insane.

She almost misses the silhouette, flickering in and out of existence as it moves quickly up the street. Darcy sits up a little straighter, on edge, but that murder strut is unmistakeably. She breaths out a silent sigh of relief, only half aware that she’d even been concerned about him at all. “Thank Christ.”

Even so, she takes her feet off the dashboard, hand creeping out from under the sleeping bag to reach for the handgun Barnes had left her with. The gun was a surprise- Darcy never expected such an explicit sign of trust from the man- not so soon- but she can’t say she’s not grateful for it anyway. Tasers may be her favoured weapon, but they’re still only good for a few charges. The loaded barrel of a gun holds far more of a threat.

Even so, the weapon is a heavy weight in her hand, and she lets it sink down with relief when she can make out the chiselled lines of Barnes’ face beneath a streetlight. There’s a tear through the left sleeve of his bulky jacket and a nasty-looking welt on his jaw, but other than that he’s unharmed. He’s carrying a new pair of number plates in one hand, which he dumps in her lap when he opens the driver-side door and hops in.

Darcy takes him in as the car rumbles into life- a loud _prurr_ that she hopes doesn’t wake anyone. There’s an unhappy twist to his mouth, the lines around his eyes pronounced as he frowns out at the road. She wonders how he got that welt.

“Everything go okay?”

He glances at her out of the corner of his eye and the frown grows. “They’ve got people there.”

Darcy frowns in confusion, mulling over the tidbit of information. “People as in, Hydra goons? Or people as in Hydra prisoners?”

His hands tighten on the steering wheel and he turns into a corner with a little more force than is truly necessary. “Worse.”

She pulls down the sleeping bag, letting it gather in her lap with the empty mint tin. “There are worse things than being a prisoner of Hydra?”

Barnes laughs; a short and ugly thing with little mirth. He motions to his metal arm and Darcy’s eyes widen in realisation. “Hydra doesn’t just keep prisoners, doll. You sit around on their dime and they’re gonna find something to do with you.”

Darcy can’t tear her eyes away from his hand; with the glove on, all she can really see are his fingers, the digits formed with almost delicate looking overlapping plates. She swallows. “Hydra’s been experimenting on people?”

“When have they _not_?” Barnes snorts bitterly, and turns down another road. Darcy has no idea where they are, but the place has the looks of the industrial estate, with motor garages and even a carpet warehouse. The looming shapes of uniformly white hire vans flashes past them, like ghosts in the dark.

“What are we gonna do about them?”

He’s quiet for a time, navigating the streets at a speed that feels fast purely because the roads are empty. “We get them out.”

Her eyes widen. “We get them- you haven’t taken them _out_ yet?”

Barnes makes a soft sound of annoyance in the back of his throat. “I think their doors are rigged; I couldn’t open them without risking their lives…” his jaw clenches, face looking momentarily pained. “I got rid of the guards, but I need you to open the doors, help get them out.”

 “Oh,” Darcy says, and she shakes away the feeling of dread settling in the pit of her stomach, straightening in her seat, tossing the sleeping bag into the back seat. Her ankle, fortunately, feels much improved today, and she’s found she can hobble around unaided today, with only the occasional twinge. It’s probably from all the sitting around they’ve done. “Are we close?” she asks, wanting to change the subject.

 Barnes snorts, and pulls them into a large, empty parking lot. The uneven shape of a warehouse grows out of the darkness, and Darcy frowns at the sight, momentarily confused. Places like these are usually fully lit, with floodlights and the occasional patrol of security. “What did you do with the lights?” she asks as they get out of the car. Barnes points at the large pole as they’re parked beneath and his boots crunch on broken glass. It’s one of the floodlights, she realises.

“I disabled them,” he says succinctly. Darcy gets the impression his idea of ‘disabling’ the lights involved shooting them out somehow.

She sighs. “So where are they?” she coughs, wishing he’d slow down at least a little. Mostly healed ankle or not, this pace isn’t helpful. At least she has her walking stick.

“Deep in the belly of the beast,” Barnes answers, the shadows on his face grim and sinister looking. “They’re on a basement level.”

Once upon a time, Darcy may have doubted the existence of a basement in a warehouse- they seemed big enough as it was- but that was before she appointed herself honorary tech-girl for Captain America and Co. “And the guards?”

“What about them?”

She spares a glance at the heavens. How is this her life? “Are they all dead?”

“I took care of them.”

Darcy’s fingers curl into a fist and she suppresses the urge to hit him. “Because that doesn’t sound ominous _at all_.”

Barnes doesn’t add a further comment, and they sneak into the compound in silence, taking care to remain at least a mite stealthy. Even with all the guards down and the cameras taken out, Darcy can’t help but try to keep herself quiet and unnoticed, as though somehow she can keep them safe by that alone.

Inside, the warehouse is dimly lit, lights spaced far enough apart that they barely light the space, dust clinging to the air around them and setting the building in the softest of hazes. She glances upwards at the towering beams of metal above them, criss-crossing the roof of the building. The place feels disarmingly charming, and she has to spare a moment to remind herself that this is a hydra base. “What were they _doing_ here, anyway?” she asks in a hushed whisper.

“I don’t know,” he replies in a tight voice. “But it wasn’t anything good.” Darcy doesn’t need to ask to know exactly what and who they’ve been experimenting on.

“Did you use the USB I gave you?” He doesn’t reply and Darcy huffs in exasperation. “Barnes?”

“I tried,” he shrugs helplessly, “but I couldn’t work it out. The doors to their cells are above my pay grade, and I don’t know if Hydra’s rigged them. I don’t want to hurt them.”

She sighs. “Right. Then I guess you’d better find me a computer.”

Barnes nods and they keep moving. They find their first guard outside an office. He lies on the ground, unconscious, his mouth gagged and his hands a feet zip-tied together. She grins at the sight of him. “Aww- you _do_ listen!”

He glares at her but Darcy is unphased. “This is strictly a trial run,” Barnes growls. “Don’t get used to it.”

Darcy just hums and smiles over her shoulder at him as she walks past the guard, and Barnes huffs, catching up to her and marching them away, a hand resting firmly on her elbow. She frowns as a thought occurs to her. “How’d you keep him under so long?”

He holds up the handgun in his metal hand and Darcy blinks in surprise. She’d never even realised he’d been holding it. “Dendrotoxin,” he explains. “Shield was working on them before the fall and Hydra liked them. Knocks you out for a good long time, depending on the dosage.”

She glances down at the ground, wincing a little. She has a good idea as to why Hydra might have liked them. Same reason Shield did, only more sinister. “Fancy tranquilisers, huh?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” he snorts and opens the door behind the guard, going in first before motioning for her to join him. Inside is a control room, and three more guards and two technicians, unconscious and hog-tied on the floor. She breathes out slowly at the sight of their unmoving forms.

“Guess we won’t be blowing this place to kingdom come.”

“Oh no,” he says shortly, “We’ll still be blowing this place... But we’ll call the cops. Let them deal with the left overs.”

She huffs a laugh at that, delighted. “And here I was thinking you liked to do everything on your own.”

“I do,” he grumbles and waves her over to one of the computers. “But sometimes you gotta pick your battles.” Darcy sends him an approving smile and he blinks at her dumbly, apparently blindsided by the expression. Darcy doesn’t care; that he listened to her at all has put her in a good mood, and it’s not long before she’s into the intranet and pulling up the feed for the cells in the basement downstairs.

She sucks in a sharp breath, good mood dissipating like leaves on the wind, heart in her throat. “Holy shit.”

Barnes hovers behind her shoulder and despite what she sees on the screens, she is suddenly achingly aware of his presence behind her. The realisation puts her on edge. “Are you going to be okay with this, Lewis?”

She turns to look up at him before thinking better of it, looking back at the screens determinedly. She almost jumps at the hand touchers her shoulder lightly and grits her teeth, scraping a nail across the fleshy part of her thumb to focus. “I’m good.”

“Good,” he says grimly with a slight squeeze of her shoulder, “Because I’m going to need you to get those prisoners out,” he sounds pained at the admission. “I have to take all the Hydra guards and scientists out, and I don’t think they’d be pleased to see me anyway… I need someone to coax them out. Someone with… a more delicate touch.”

 Darcy raises an unimpressed eyebrow, twisting in her seat to direct it at him. “And what, you figured ‘cause I’m a woman, they’d be happier to see me?”

He frowns at her, looking confused. “Why would- that’s not what I-” Barnes breaks off, shaking his head. “You’ve better… people skills.”

“Oh,” Darcy says, feeling stupid. A flush rises to her cheeks and she turns back to the computer, “I guess as reasons go, that’s as good as any.”  She shakes away the feeling and straightens in her seat. There are more important things to do that stay hung up on her occasional foot-in-mouth affliction.  She sets to work and it isn’t long before she’s bypassed their security measures and disarmed the door. She grins up at him in satisfaction and Barnes nods, moving to the second door at the other end of the room.

“Through here.”

She follows, and he leads her down and short corridor and into an elevator- the old, open-caged kind, obviously made for carrying heavy loads and machinery. She wonders what this factory was once used for.

They skirt around the guard lying just outside the elevator and Barnes presses something on the console. The elevator groans loudly as it takes them down, and Darcy watches the concrete floor pass above them with muted interest. There’s something close to fear churning in her gut, and it takes all of her energy to tamp it down. She trusts Barnes to have done his job right, but it doesn’t seem to help much when she only has a general idea of what she’s going to find down there.

The elevator stops with an ominous _clang_ , and Barnes heaves open the door, weapon drawn as he marches out. There’s no answering gunfire and Darcy thinks it safe enough to follow. She shivers and tugs down at the sleeves of her sweater- there is a definite change in temperature down here, and the stark, artificial lighting adds an impersonal and discomforting edge to the atmosphere.

“And you’re _sure_ you got everyone?” Darcy asks quietly as they pass a motionless scientist.

“Certain,” Barnes replies, barely even pausing to check if the scientist is still out. “There’s four more down here that need to come out, but they’re all harmless, like the rest.”

She nods slowly, content for now with his reply. Barnes breathes out slowly and motions at a door, painted a stark white with a small, square window lined with mesh embedded in it. It lies ajar, the space where the lock once was gouged out with what looks like finger marks.

The silver plate screwed into the metal below the window reads: _Project Chimera_.

“Through there,” Barnes says unnecessarily. Darcy nods stiffly, and he pauses, resting his hand in a rough estimation of comfort on her shoulder again. “They won’t hurt you.”

“It’s not them I’m afraid of.”

He squeezes her shoulder. “You have your gun; you’ll keep them safe. Get them out of there.”

She nods, mute, and Barnes leaves, stalking away from her with a purpose in his strides that Darcy can’t possibly hope to imitate.

“Fuck,” she whispers to herself, and reaches for the door with hands that blessedly aren’t shaking. She pushes and the heavy door opens for her. Beyond is another brightly lit corridor, with four metal doors on each side. The windows on each of them are covered with grates, rather than glass. More white paint, she notes- like a hospital; bland and sterile. She breathes in deeply; it even smells like one.

“Hello?” she calls in a small voice.

Silence, down the corridor.

Then, another voice calls back.


	15. The Chimeras

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Co. meet the X-men. Or at least, some of them...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus Christ you guys, you have no goddamn idea how much I hated this chapter. Right up until I read through it, now I'm a bit more ambivalent towards it, but holy hell did I want this baby to just. End.
> 
>  
> 
> WARNINGS FOR  
> Implied/referenced child abuse  
> Non-consensual body modification and experimentation
> 
> So guys, please proceed with caution

“Hello?” a soft voice answers. Darcy swallows back her trepidation as she walks into the corridor, her footsteps echoing down the space. “Hello?” the voice sounds again from the very end of the corridor. “Who’s there?”

“My name’s Darcy,” she answers, mouth dry. “Bar- James sent me.  I’m here to get you out.”

The longest of pauses, and Darcy half wonders if they heard her. “There are triggers on the doors,” another voice sounds to her left. A young man, judging by the pitch. “James- he tried to spring us out, but he didn’t know how to bypass the gas.”

Darcy smiles, breathing in deeply. The space smells faintly of paint and disinfectant. “I know. That’s why I’m here; he wanted me to disable the traps.”

A hand pokes out of the window of the furthermost room, long, dark-skinned fingers wrapping around the bars. Darcy’s stomach swoops; she wishes she could scream. “Let me out first; I’ll help with the others.”

The others are suspiciously silent, and Darcy thinks it best to comply. Her handgun is an unfamiliar but comforting weight in her hand, but she stows it away, cringing as she tucks it into her jeans; Natasha would not approve. “Okay. What’s your name?”

 A pause. “Nathan.”

Darcy reaches his cell and peers through the window; his cell is dark, but she can just make out the strange, angular lines of his face. His dark eyes seem to reflect back at her oddly; like a cat’s. “I need you to stand back for me, Nathan.” He does so, edging back into the shadows of his room and Darcy enters the code she filched from the system. There’s a click and a faint hiss, and she opens the door carefully, letting out a barely audible sigh of relief when they’re not immediately flooded with noxious fumes.

A boy- he can’t be older than sixteen or seventeen- stands anxiously to attention before her and Darcy spares a moment to take him in. There’s something _off_ about his proportions- his limbs a little too long and thin, his neck arched, eyes a little too large in his face. He looks almost skeletal, but there is an unmistakeably undercurrent of strength to him; wiry muscle lying just beneath the skin.

She gives him a strained smile. “You okay?”

Nathan nods, eyes glancing past her to glance at the cells behind her. “I’m fine,” he says, and his voice feels like honey and smoke- a warm caress against her skin that makes feel uneasy. There’s something oddly captivating about his voice; like it could tell her to do anything he asked if she let him catch her off-guard. “We need to get the others out.”

She nods decisively, feeling almost like he’s the adult and _she’s_ the child. She waves around his room, trying desperately to dispel the sentiment. “You need anything from here? Clothes? Books?”

Nathan barely spares his self-contained cell a second glance. “There’s nothing for us here,” he murmurs. “But you may want to grab the files on our doors.”

Darcy takes the hint, slipping out of his cell; a clipboard of notes hangs in a recess beside his door, unlabelled, and she plucks it off the wall, tucking it beneath her arm. All the cells have them, she notices. “The code’s fifteen, forty-nine, ninety-nine,” she tells him, and Nathan hums his thanks, already typing the numbers into the keypad opposite his cell. Darcy moves onto the next one just as a girl shoots out of the cell, wrapping her arms around Nathan’s midriff tightly. She swallows back her fury; she’d known they were kids, but seeing them through the blurred feed of a camera is one thing. Meeting them in the flesh is another thing entirely. They’re _children_.

Hydra should burn for this.

Hydra _will_ burn for this.

She moves quickly, opening each of the cells and giving the kids a reassuring smile as she moves onto the next, all the while viciously repressing her horror and fury. She can deal with the emotions later; preferably with a bottle of cheap vodka and a room full of fragile, breakable things.

 Most of the children don’t have anything immediately ‘wrong’ with them, but one of the girl’s hair has been replaced with strange and deadly looking quills that extends down her back, as though she wears a wig made of porcupine skin. Her name is Kiara, and Darcy doesn’t miss the way she angles herself away from everybody with a gut-wrenchingly forlorn look on her face. She has a suspicion her hair works similar to a porcupine’s too.

Another girl- so tiny and waifish, though she insists she’s almost eight- moves slowly and carefully, much in the same way Darcy’s great aunt- a long-time sufferer of rheumatoid arthritis- used to. Her knuckles as knobbled and oddly shaped, as though frequently broken and healed. Mandee- the Asian American girl Nathan had first let out- picks her up with ease, perching the girl on her hip as though she weighs nothing at all.

Darcy leads them out of their prison with a hand gripped firmly to two boys so similar in appearance that they can’t _not_ be twins. They move with an uncanny and synchronised silence, though they take in their surroundings with wide eyes as Darcy moves the group back to the elevator, their small hands in hers gripping tightly. Nathan- who carries the little girl Becca on his hip like Mandee does- closes the door behind them, and Darcy endures the ride up in a silence fraught with tension. Kiara, backed into a corner, shares a weighted look with Darcy over the pile of folders she carries and Darcy gives her a smile that she hopes comes off as comforting.

The littlest boy tugs on the hem of her sweater, looking up at her with clear blue eyes. There is an oddly plastic look to his features, as though someone played with the putty of his face and Darcy’s heart _aches._ His name is Kyle. “Where are we going?”

Darcy swallows, not entirely sure how to answer, but knowing that she must, with eight pairs of eyes on her. The elevator clangs to a halt, but Nathan doesn’t open the gate. She bites on the inside of her cheek; James had never exactly specified that when he’d told her to get them out. “God willing, you’re going to upstate New York,” she tells them, knowing it to be true even as she says it. “I know people who know some- other- people; they’ll help you guys. Take care of you; more than James or I can.”

Nathan glances at the girl on his hip- she looks to be a little too old for it, but her eyes are a milky white. Even so, she must sense his attention because she shrugs. “She’s telling the truth.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow at that, but the boy just nods decisively and opens the metal gate with an ease that screams of enhanced strength. They file out and Nathan lets her take the lead again. She tries not to squeeze too tightly on the boys’ hands as they pass the hog-tied Hydra agents and she moves them on with a little more speed. Her ankle- blessedly- only twinges occasionally.

“Are they…?” Mandee trails off, sparing a lingering glance for one of the men. He still- blessedly- unconscious. One of the twins, whose name she thinks is Jaime, flinches at the sight of one of the technicians, stumbling into her side. Darcy shakes her head grimly. The anger crawling beneath her skin threatens to burst from her throat and she tamps it down ruthlessly.

 _Later_. She promises herself. _Later_.

“They’re alive,” she grits out.

“Shame,” Nathan says bitterly, and though Darcy doesn’t show it, she can’t help but agree with him.

She breathes out a sigh of relief as soon as they’re back out into the warehouse proper, the space still largely empty and devoid of life and she slows down their pace a little under the hazy lights.

A faint scuffle of sound stops her in her tracks and the children stop with her, stumbling a little behind her. She scans the warehouse, heart in her throat, though logically she knows it must be Barnes.

“It’s me,” Barnes steps out of the shadows and Darcy closes her eyes for a long moment, relief a tangible thing.

“I need your phone,” she tells him without preamble and he stiffens, the approval in his eyes disappearing as they narrowing in suspicion. She huffs a sigh, exasperated. “For Thor’s sake! Someone needs to take care of these kids; are _you_ gonna do it?”

Barnes doesn’t flinch, but it looks like a near thing. He breathes out slowly, gaze intense, and slips his hand into the pocket of his pants, pulling out a phone that belongs in the mid-2000s. Darcy raises a brow as he hands it over grudgingly. “Who are you going to call?”

“Not Steve, if that’s what you’re worried about,” her eyes slide to the twin on her left- Jaime, she think. “He’s… not great with kids.”

Barnes snorts, and she wonders if he remembers something. “Right,” he murmurs. The look in his eyes in enough to tell Darcy just how much he’s trusting her right now, and she smiles at him in reassurance.

“They’ll be okay,” she promises, and he nods sharply. “These guys, they have _lots_ of experience taking care of kids with different… needs.” She grins at him. “And the best thing is, they’re not affiliated with the Avengers, which I’m sure you’ll be pleased about.”

He nods slowly, clearly thinking on it. “Okay,” he says eventually. “Okay. Call them; see how quickly they can pick the kids up. Take them to the car,” he tells her, and hands over the keys as well. Darcy nods slowly- surprised _again_ by the show of trust- and collects the children around her, taking the same delivery entrance they’d used before. There’s a truck parked just outside now, its trailer facing towards the warehouse.

The children stumble at the sudden change in scenery, all of them looking around in awe at the expanse of clear, dark skies. Darcy feels lightheaded at their reactions.

“Been a while?” she asks in attempt to stay humorous. She’s fairly certain she’s failing, but the kids apparently don’t seem to notice. She catches sight of Mandee surreptitiously wiping at her face.

“For some reason I imagined more stars,” Kiara murmurs, to Darcy’s left. Darcy sighs.

“We’re in Denver. There’s too many lights.”

“Yeah,” she replies, eyes still glued to the sky, “I figured.”

Darcy lets them look up at the sky for another minute or so, before the need to move on becomes too much. She usher them along- or tries to, pausing again when they get close to the truck.

 “Well,” she remarks as she spies the unmoving forms of the passed-out Hydra agents, stripped of their gear and most of their clothes and lying in piles on the floor of the lorry, “I guess that answers my question about what he’s doing with them.”

Mandee and her charge join her, the girl’s gaze trained on the agents. “What’s going to happen to them?” she asks in a soft voice. Darcy presses her lips together unhappily. The truth of the matter is that she doesn’t really know. It’s not as if they really _talked_ about any of this before Barnes went tearing through the place like a one man army.

“We’ll take them to the police. Or the FBI,” she tells the girl, hoping to _God_ that’s it’s the truth. “They’ve been handling most of the Hydra operatives we’ve been picking up.”

That at least, _is_ the truth. Or at least it was for when she was still with Steve and Sam.

“And then what?”

Darcy shrugs and hustles them on. Most of the kids look uncomfortable just being near the truck and Darcy has to try _extremely_ hard to disguise her anger. “They’re members of a terrorist organisation, sweetie. Every single one of the people that ever hurt you are going to jail for a long time.”

“… Really?”

“You betcha,” she promises, though Darcy’s not entirely certain if it’s really a promise she can keep. For all that Shield was the focus of the Hydra reveal, there’s no doubt in her mind that no organisation- be it the police, the FBI or the CIA- are completely devoid of Hydra. She tries hard not to think about how easy it would be for any number of the people they’ve just captured to walk free.

In desperate need of a distraction, she points out at the faint reflection from the windows of their car. “We’re just over there guys; not much longer and you can rest your feet and watch the stars.” The kids seem to take that as the encouragement Darcy hoped it to be, and they make it to the SUV without incident. She takes note of the chill in the air- it must surely be sometime after two in the morning- and unlocks the car, pulling out all the blankets they have and handing them out to all the kids. “It’s cold,” she gives in explanation when Nathan looks down at her in confusion. “I don’t know how long James is going to take.”

He swallows audibly, glancing back to the dark shape of the warehouse. “Thank-you. For everything,” he says quietly and Darcy smiles at him. She doesn’t move to touch him; she doesn’t think he’d appreciate the gesture.

“I need to make a call,” she says instead, pulling out Barnes’ phone. She points to a space about twenty feet away from the car. “I’ll be right over there, okay?”

He waves her off, moving over to where the other children have gathered together on the ground in the parking space beside the SUV, huddled together in the sleeping bags to stare up at the sky in awe. “Go. I’ll keep us safe.”

Darcy nods slowly, taking in the proud set of his bony shoulders, eyes still catching what little light is around in a way that is entirely unnatural. “I won’t be long,” she promises, and moves away, punching in the numbers as she does,

She presses the ‘call’ button nervously, and puts the phone up to her ear, only half-aware that she’s holding her breath.

The call almost rings straight through before she hears the click of it being received. The air escapes her chest in a gusty sigh of relief.  

“ _Hello_?”

Darcy winces at the sleep in their voice. “Pepper?”

The longest of pauses, then, “ _Darcy? Oh my God- Darcy_ where the hell are you? _Are you okay?”_

“I’m okay, yeah,” she laughs breathily, staring down at her scuffed sneakers. Kicks a patch of grass just to give her something to do. “I- um- I’d rather not say until I can be sure Jarvis isn’t tracing this call.”

Another pause as Pepper chews on that information. Darcy thanks every deity she knows that she took the time to memorise the woman’s number. “ _Jarvis,_ ” she hears the older woman say, voice muffled as though holding it away from her mouth, “ _can you please enact security protocol 451?_ ” another break as presumably Jarvis answers her. The sound of fumbling as Pepper returns the phone to her face. “ _Jarvis has stopped the trace now. But Darcy, I can’t just_ not _tell people that you called. Everyone’s been worried sick; Natasha almost dislocated Steve’s shoulder from what I hear. Jane’s been muttering about spontaneous wormholes._ ”

Darcy frowns. “You shouldn’t blame Steve. It’s not his fault Barnes-” she breaks off, kicking the tuft of grass again. “It’s not his fault,” she finishes lamely.

“ _Try telling the others that. Tony said something about lumps of coal for Christmas, and Darcy I don’t think he was lying._ ”

She barks out a startled laugh, the sound cutting off quickly. “Look, Pepper. I don’t have a lot of time but I need your help.”

“ _Anything, Darcy. Whatever you need._ ”

She takes in a fortifying breath and glances back at the huddle of children beside the car. “I need you to call the X-men. We found- well. We found some kids Hydra’s been using as their playthings, and I don’t really think the government should get their hands on them.”

Another short silence from Pepper’s side. In her mind’s eye, Darcy pictures her rolling out of bed and slipping on an elegant nightrobe. “ _Okay_ ,” she says eventually. “ _Okay, I can do that._ ”

“Pepper, you are an absolute life-saver,” she breathes in relief and Pepper laughs softly. “We need them here as soon as possible; preferably before we blow the place to kingdom come and bring America’s Finest down on the place.”

“ _I’m sure they can manage that_ ,” Pepper drawls. “ _I hear that Blackbird of theirs is quite fast_.”

“God,” Darcy sighs, sparing a glance for the skies. They’ll be fucked once the sun starts to rise. “I hope so.’

“ _Anything they need to know? Where are you, Darcy?_ ”

“Umm- the kids seem okay for now, but if they’ve got like, a paediatrician or a counsellor, it’d probably do them some good to take them along for the ride. And- uh- we’re in Denver. I’m um… I’m not entirely sure where we are, actually,” she laughs self-depreciatingly. “You may need to trace this call after all.”

“ _Why don’t you want us to trace the call, Darcy? Didn’t he kidnap you?_ ”

“He did,” Darcy admits grudgingly, “but I think he only did it because he’s not used to people asking nicely. I don’t think he really expected me to say yes.”

Pepper sighs heavily over the phone. “ _I’ve got the trace. If anyone asks, I won’t keep it from them._ ”

“I get it Pepper. It’s okay. I just… don’t think he’s ready to see Steve yet.”

“ _But he’s ready for you?_ ”

She laughs, a little bitter. “He doesn’t even know who I am.”

“ _You take care of yourself, Darcy_ ,” Pepper says after a long pause. She sounds sad. “ _Don’t let him hurt you.”_

“Don’t worry,” she says grimly, glancing back at the kids huddled together on the asphalt. Kiara sits a little distanced from the others, a faint look of misery on her face and Darcy is momentarily overtaken by a flash of blinding anger. “I’ll be okay.”

Pepper sighs heavily and hangs up, and Darcy tucks the phone back into the pocket of her jeans. She moves over to the huddle of children and sits down beside Kiara, taking care not to startle her. The girl stares at her in muted surprise and Darcy wonders how long it’s been since an adult treated her as anything more than a thing.

“Hi,” she says quietly. Kiara regards her with cautious eyes.

“You shouldn’t site near me,” she replies, staring down at the files that sit in front of her, looking visibly conflicted and Darcy shrugs.

“Do you want me to sit elsewhere?” she doesn’t look up and Darcy breathes out slowly. “Then I think I’ll take your non-answer as permission to sit here. Until you say otherwise.

Kiara is silent for a long moment, as though contemplating. “Okay,” she says eventually, voice so soft that Darcy has to strain to hear it. She doesn’t say anything more and Darcy doesn’t push it. She uses the time instead to pull Barnes’ phone back out of her pocket and begins to dissect it, removing the battery and SIM card and bending it in two with her hands. Kiara and a few of the other children watch her with muted interest.

“Who are you?” Nathan asks suddenly. Darcy glances up at him, offering a brief smile.

“I’m no one special,” she tells them. “Just Darcy. Just tech support, really. But my friend… he used to be with Hydra- not like _that_ ,” she amends when the older kids suck in a collective breath of what she hopes isn’t fear. “ _God_ , not like that. He was like you guys- a-a prisoner. But he got out.”

“Was he…?”

“Yeah,” she smiles wryly, the memory of Barnes when she first met him- whole but not necessarily hale- flashing through her mind. “He certainly wasn’t born with that arm of his.”

 Or that ass. Probably.

Se huffs a laugh and sets the disassembled pieces of the phone in front of her. “And now he’s trying to put Hydra down. Make sure they can’t hurt anyone else.”

The corner of Nathan’s mouth twitches. “Who’s picking us up?”

Darcy chews on the side of her cheek, glancing up at the sky. She’s not certain how long they’ll take, but chances are they’ll be about half an hour, if their blackbird is anything like the Avengers’ quinjet. “The X-Men,” she tells them, taking in their largely uncomprehending expressions. All except Kiara, who looks up from her clenched hands in surprise. “You know them?”

Kiara nods at her slowly. Her eyes are an odd yellow colour. “My cousin went there. But I thought they only took mutants.”

Darcy presses her lips together. She hasn’t read their medical reports (and frankly doesn’t want to), but she’d bet her bottom dollar that a good number of the kids actually are mutants. “I think they’ll make an exception. They’re good people and you guys look like you could use some adults who are better prepared to help you through whatever… changes have been wrought on you,” of which Darcy suspects there are many, considering the bulk of some of their medical files.

In the distance, Darcy spies the indistinct shape of Barnes, pulling another group of agents from the warehouse. She sighs. Children have never been her forte.

“Do you guys want to hear a story?”

Kiara frowns at her, confused. A hand rises to self-consciously brush through her spines and Darcy spares a moment to imagine what they must feel like. “Like what?”

“Well,” Darcy drawls, leaning back on her hands to suppress a shiver; she’s cold, but not enough to merit stealing a blanket from the kids. “How many of you lot know a _real_ story about Captain America and the Howling Commandos?”

The resounding silence is enough to have Darcy grinning. Steve is really _not_ going to like her passing on this story.

 

* * *

 

Darcy hears the Blackbird long before she catches sight of it.

Or really, ‘hearing’ it isn’t quite the right term; for such a large thing, it’s remarkably quiet (for the best, probably). Instead she’s alerted to its proximity by the rapid shift in air pressure, her ear-drums popping uncharacteristically when she rotates her jaw. A faint whine that grows in intensity follows it and Darcy stands up, grimacing at the sudden rush of blood back into her feet. The children join her, standing slightly behind her and Darcy shoots them a reassuring smile, wishing James was here with her.

Above them, the dark shape of what she’s hoping is the X-Men’s Blackbird materialises, and for one hysterical moment all she can think of is how _phallic_ it looks. It’s ridiculous and absurd and Darcy is forced to bite down on her lip quite hard in order to stop herself from giggling about it as it touches down about thirty yards away, wind buffeting them from its landing. Not long after, a ramp extends from the jet- a soft grind of gears and pneumatic pumps that lets it descend slowly.

Darcy fidgets nervously whilst they wait for it to finish its descent. The only X-Man she’s met is Logan, who’d looked paradoxically uncomfortable and laidback at some party Tony had thrown several months ago. Darcy’s not even sure why he’d been there, but he’d tried hitting on her and it hadn’t ended well for him.

The ramp hits the ground with a resounding _clang_ and for a moment Darcy wonders where in the hell Barnes is- surely he’d want to supervise this- before her attention is diverted to the three figures emerging from the innards of the penis-shaped jet. A black woman takes the lead, her hair a shocking shade of white; the square of her shoulders is familiar in a way that all women used to fighting their own battles are. Behind her trail a man and a woman, looking statuesque but grim. The man wears odd glasses over his eyes, the glass only a thin strip that wraps around his face.

Their leader smiles at Darcy as they draw close, and once again she notices the odd drop in barometric pressure, achingly familiar to the feeling of being close to an Asgardian Bifrost portal. She rolls her jaw again, a little unnerved by the strange shift in atmosphere that she suspects is a result of close proximity to the X-Men’s leader.

“Darcy Lewis?” she asks, stopping in front of them. Her companions flank her and Darcy feels extremely out-numbered right now.

“That’s me,” she says, a little nervous.

“Ororo Munroe,” the woman introduces herself and Darcy takes her offered hand without hesitation. Their touch sends a faint zap of static electricity up her arm. “And my teammates Jean Grey and Scott Summers.”

“Hi,” Darcy greets them with an awkward smile. Jean waves back at her, but Scott seems to ignore her completely, his gaze focusses away from their little group completely, as though scanning for threats. For all she knows, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Ororo’s attention edges past Darcy to take in her collection of children and Darcy doesn’t miss the brief flicker of anger that crosses her face. “And who are your lovely friends?”

“Ah,” Darcy says intelligently. She edges slightly out of the way so she can introduce the children to Ororo and Jean, stumbling only a little over the twins Javier and Jaime. Ororo and Jean greet each of them with a gracious smile, both somehow able to completely ignore the awed looks the kids give them and it’s not long before Ororo manages to convince them to follow her up into the Blackbird. Kiara trails behind them, sparing Darcy a grateful smile and a wave that she mirrors back. Something in her chest tightens at the sight of the girl, unsure but brave enough to follow more strangers.

Nathan wavers beside her, but Mandee- the second eldest- follows the younger children up into the plane with only a lingering touch to Nathan’s shoulder, the smallest girl Monica perched on her hip again. Darcy doesn’t miss the wistful look he sends after her, but he doesn’t follow.

“You’ll be okay with these people,” Darcy tells them lowly, turning to face them.

“All I have to go on is you word,” he replies. He looks torn between wanting to trust her and wanting to run from them as far as possible.

“Maybe I can help,” Jean murmurs, inserting herself into the conversation effortlessly. Darcy is grateful; she doesn’t know what she’d be able to say to convince him they’re good even if she tried. “Nathan, I could show you, if you’d like.”

He gives her a look of extreme doubt and Darcy almost smiles. “How?”

“I’m a telepath,” Jean explains and Darcy sucks in a sharp breath of surprise. God, she hopes she didn’t hear what she thought about the Blackbird. “I can project myself into another’s consciousness; show you what you want to know.”

Nathan appears to chew on the information, looking unwillingly sceptic. “Will it hurt?” The older woman shakes her head vehemently and he nods slowly. Darcy spares a moment to contemplate how weird her life has become that this feels almost normal. “Okay.”

Jean smiles at him mutely and holds out her hand. Nathan places his own on top with only a slight hesitation and almost immediately he snatches his hand away. “I- uh- _wow_ ,” he rasps, staring at Jean with wide eyes, “that’s a lot of mutants.” He glances at Darcy and she smiles at him wryly. He looks away. “And you can help us?”

“We’re possibly the most qualified people on the planet.”

“They’ll take good care of you. All of you,” Darcy pipes in, encouraging. Nathan nods slowly.

“Okay; okay,” he holds out his hand to Darcy and she takes it. His skin is oddly cool as he shakes it. “Thank-you,” he tells her solemnly, his oddly reflective eyes shut-off and unreadable, looking far older than he has any right to be. “For everything.”

She shrugs. “It needed to be done and someone had to do it.”

He glances back at the Blackbird and the warehouse further behind it. “Thank him for us?”

Darcy smiles. “Of course.”

He lets go of her hand, and Jean leads him into the Blackbird, sparing her another brief glance as they walk up the ramp. Darcy swallows back the rise of emotion- a toxic mix of anger and despair and relief- as he disappears into the jet. Not a moment later, Ororo re-emerges, striding down the ramp confidently and joining Darcy. She regards her curiously, and Darcy tries hard not to fidget beneath her scrutiny.

“What happened to them?”

Darcy blinks at her, caught off guard. “Hydra,” she says tightly, recovering. “I don’t know what they did exactly, but it was obvious they used them as guinea pigs for _something_. Figured you guys would be best suited to care for them.”

Ororo doesn’t relent, gaze intense as she clearly evaluates Darcy. “The Professor sent us here with minimal information, but we’ll look after them. I would like to know however, how _you_ found them.”

The corner of her lip twitches. “I’m not working alone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Ororo tilts her head. “You’re not going to tell me who they are, are you?”

She bites her lip to hold back her smile. “Nope.”

“Shame,” the woman sighs. She pulls an odd plastic disc the size of her palm from the pocket of her jacket and hands it to Darcy. One of the sides has a large button on it. “Use it if you come across any more kids. It will only track you once you activate the beacon.”

“Will do,” Darcy hums, twisting it around in her hands. “And thanks. For coming so soon. I was half worried you’d take too long and it’d be daylight.”

The mutant huffs a laugh, glancing behind herself to look at the warehouse. “What are you going to do with the Hydra operatives?”

“The police will find them; alive.”

The corners of Ororo’s mouth tighten. “I pray they get the justice they deserve.”

“You and me both,” Darcy agrees.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Darcy Lewis,” she says and behind her, Scott retreats back into the plane, evidently satisfied with the goings on. “The X-Men would be honoured to meet you again.”

She gapes at her, flummoxed. “Uh- right. Yes. Same to you, I guess… Just maybe don’t send Logan.”

Ororo’s eyes sparkle as she laughs and Darcy chuckles with her almost against her will. “So you’re _that_ Darcy.”

She flushes. “Yup.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Until we meet again.”

“Ah… yep. That,” Darcy’s cheeks feel hot. “Keep them safe.”

“Of course.”

Darcy watches her turn around and leave, feeling, for the first time in a long time, almost lonely. It feels like it’s been an age since she’s seen anyone other than Steve, Sam or Barnes, and the isolation suddenly hits her with the force of a freight train. She watches mutely as the Blackbird starts up again, the air-pressure around her shifting rapidly again, her ears filling with the shrill drone of its engines. It rises up into the air- slowly at first, as the thrusters gain momentum, and she cranes her head to watch it, before it speeds away.

She sighs into the silence it leaves behind, the absence of sound an oddly physical pressure in her ears. She closes her eyes for a moment and thinks about home.

“They’ll be okay?”

Darcy shrieks, jumping away from the man who’s suddenly materialised beside her. “Jesus _Christ Barnes!_ ” she growls, heart in her throat. “Would it kill you to wear a bell?”

He raises an eyebrow, bemused. “Probably.”

Against her better judgement, Darcy snorts. “Was that- did you just make a joke?”

He shrugged, eyes glancing away from her. “I may have.” She narrows her eyes at him and Barnes nods back in the direction the Blackbird came. “They’ll be okay?” he asks again.

Darcy nods. “Probably got some of the best qualifications on the planet to take care of them,” she tells him. Barnes nods slowly, apparently satisfied.

“So… do you wanna blow something up?”

Darcy laughs shakily and starts off for the building without bothering to see if he follows. “Oh James,” she purrs. “It’s like you don’t know me at _all_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So all these kids do have back stories, and they have been altered in different ways, but for a lot of them, their changes are internal and it didn't make much sense to the chapter to describe what they are. 
> 
> For now, I have no plans for them, but we may see. 
> 
>  
> 
> And GUYS! I am so keen to write the next chapters guys, you have no idea! I have a surprise and it is gonna be awesome ^.^


	16. The Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy unpacks the SUV and tries to take out some trash...

Darcy walks with purpose back towards the warehouse. Even in the dark, she can make out the indistinct white shape of the truck and she picks up her pace. Behind her, she hears the soft sound of Barnes speeding up to join her and Darcy squares her jaw.

“Who did you call?”

“Pepper Potts,” Darcy says tightly. “Tony’s girlfriend. She has contacts to the X-Men, which I thought would be useful.”

“They didn’t take long,” he muses, and Darcy hums. “Will they come after you?”

She glances at him, before training her eyes back on the truck. “Only if they think to ask Pepper about it. And the X-men aren’t affiliated to the Avengers- as far as they know, I was just some girl who came across some kids and needed their help.”

Well, more or less.

They fall into a grim silence and walk in sync towards the warehouse, their feet hitting the asphalt in unison as though marching towards their doom. The gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans is a heavy weight on her mind and her skin crawls. There’s something bubbling beneath her skin; something ugly and visceral that churns in her gut and renders her mute. Her feet seem to be pulling her forwards without thought.

She’s unsurprised when she pulls up short behind the truck, blinking at the darkened innards of the trailer. It takes half a second for James to realise she’s stopped and he halts, turning around to look at her in confusion.

“Darcy?” he asks, confusion lacing his voice. Darcy ignores him, and she finds herself stepping forwards and climbing into the trailer. The roaring in her ears is deafening, blood rushing past her ears.

Some of the agents are awake, she realises. They blink up at her in confusion and she bares her teeth at them.

“Who are you?” a middle-aged man with the look of a scientist about him slurs, defiance lacing his voice and something in Darcy just. Cracks.

She kicks the meat of his thigh viciously, pulling out her gun and levels it at his head before James can so much as blink. The man’s gaze grows clearer and his eyes widen in shock as she clicks off the safety.

“Give me one reason,” she says, voice cold and firm and entirely alien to her. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”

“Darcy-” James tries. A hand touches her shoulder and she shrugs it off, the touch if anything making her angrier.

“They’re _children_ ,” she hisses, and presses the cold metal to the scientist’s forehead. The man whimpers. “ _Children!_ ” she reiterates, a hint of despair creeping into her voice. “And you stole them away; experimented on them!”

“Please,” he babbles, going almost cross-eyed as he stares in terror at her weapon. “I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what? Didn’t know?” she laughs bitterly and thinks of the forlorn expression on Kiara’s face. The crippled fingers of Monica. “Do I look like I was born yesterday?”

“They made me! Please!” he begs.

“ _Don’t lie to me!_ ” she snarls, and presses the barrel of the pistol so hard his head hits the wall of the trailer. “Don’t you _dare_ fucking lie to me! How long did you torture them for? How long did you play God with their bodies?” she just barely manages to restrain herself from kicking him viciously in the gut. James’ hand returns to her shoulder, gripping tight.

“That’s enough.”

The click of her cocking the gun seems deafening in the confines of the truck and the man flinches. “Oh God,” he whimpers, but Darcy is an immoveable statue of fury, her nerves almost vibrating with rage.

“Did they scream?” she sneers down at him. “Beg you to stop? _How long_ \- how long has Project Chimera been operating? How many kids have you torn apart and re-made? A dozen? Two dozen? You bottom-feeding piece of shit, give me one fucking reason not to spray your brains across the wall.”

“Darcy, that’s _enough!_ ” James growls, and his flesh hand slides down her arm, wrapping short fingers around her wrist, directly over her words.

The contact makes her flinch, the sensation of skin against her soulmark so shocking and foreign that it’s like being slapped in the face. She sucks in a sharp breath, staring in horror at the weapon pressed against the man’s head.

And she’d have to do is squeeze the trigger.

One squeeze, and _bam!_ A man would be dead.

She swallows thickly, awash with shame. “Shit,” she breathes, and James gently takes the handgun from her now-shaking grip. The scientist bursts into tears, face turning red and splotchy as he cries in relief and the shame disappears as suddenly as it arrived, replaced once again with a hot and wrathful fury. She kicks him in the thigh again and bares her teeth in a rabid snarl when he yelps in pain.

“You piece of shit,” she snarls, ignoring the hand wrapping back around her scarred wrist. She’s just so _angry_. At everything Hydra’s done. At everything they’ve gotten away with for far too long. It takes every scrap of energy to stop herself from stooping to their level. “I hope you rot in whatever CIA hellhole they fucking throw you into.”

She snatches her hand out of James’ grip and turns away, jumping from the truck and stoically ignores the hot lance of pain that shoots up her leg when she lands.

“Darcy-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snarls as she marches back to the warehouse. “But you’d better get them out of range, because I’m about to blow this place.”

Silence from the supersoldier, and Darcy doesn’t bother checking to see if he’s following her instructions. The fury rages beneath her skin and dulls her nerves, but outwardly she is nothing but cold purpose, walking quickly through the warehouse. Behind her, she hears a dull series of _cracks_ as James shoots the awake agents back into oblivion and Darcy grimaces. She stalks back into the control room, easily spotting her flash drive, still plugged into the computer she’d used to disable the gas in the cells. Darcy works quickly, re-routing their security measures and initiating Hydra’s trusty self-destruct with the ease of practice.

“You’d think they’d learn,” she murmurs bitterly, sitting back in her seat for a brief moment to wallow in the vicious satisfaction that comes from watching the timer begin ticking down. Darcy stands, tugging the flash drive from the computer and tucking it into her bra to deal with later. She turns to leave, pausing in the doorway of the room to cast a contemptuous glare over the computers and the discarded piles of weaponry and clothing James left on the floor. She contemplates making a biting and acerbic comment, but decides against it. It’s probably a little too insane, even for her.

Darcy leaves, moving quickly once again; she may have given themselves a twenty minute countdown, but it doesn’t pay to dawdle. James is already waiting for her outside the warehouse, the SUV’s engine a soft purr of sound as it idles. She jumps in, slamming the door with maybe a little more force than is strictly necessary.

“Drive,” she tells him, and James breathes out heavily but complies, speeding through the parking lot. They pass the truck full of passed out hydra operatives parked on the road outside the base, the heavy steel doors firmly closed. They drive past it a little too quickly for her to be sure, but Darcy thinks she spots the twisted remnants of the locking mechanism on its doors, as though someone bent it with their bare hands. She doesn’t ask, and James doesn’t offer an explanation.

James drives them out of Denver with ease, pushing the speed limits, but not enough to bring attention to themselves. Darcy watches the time tick away on the little digital clock on the dash. They’re already in the outer suburbs when the clock ticks over the twenty minute mark and she’s almost disappointed that they’re not close enough to hear or see the explosion. She sighs heavily, settling into her seat. She’s tired, she realises.

They drive in a tense silence, and Darcy stares out the window vacantly. The anger of before is muted now, but still potent enough to freeze any words she may speak in her throat. She watches her reflection in the glass instead, the dark and indistinct scenery speeding past in an endless blur of grassy fields and rolling hills.

At some point he turns onto a single-lane highway, and they travel along it for close to forty minutes. He turns them onto an unmarked road just as the first rays of morning begin streaking across the sky and watches the odd tree zip past. The car rattles alarmingly; James is possibly travelling a little too fast down the road, and he has to continually swerve and dodge potholes in the badly maintained road. The bumpy ride does nothing to improve her mood.

Darcy grimaces. In the whole time, neither of them have so much as breathed a single word.

She doesn’t make any effort to break it.

James makes another turn at some point, and the road becomes even worse, forcing him to slow down and navigate the overgrown road with a care she’s sure he finds irritating. Darcy doesn’t expect him pull into a long driveway and stop in front of an aged farmstead. She blinks in surprise; in the dim morning light, she can just see the chipped and peeling paintwork of what must have once been a stately Queen Anne style home. Several sections of rail on the small upstairs veranda are broken or missing, the windows boarded closed, and many of the sculpted tiles on the gable roof are broken. Much of the rest of the house is hidden by the over-grown garden around it, encroaching upon the house itself in several parts.

James shuts off the car, staring out the windscreen with an angry look upon his face. He opens his door and exits, and Darcy can hear his boots crunch on the white crushed gravel as he walks around the car to wrench open Darcy’s door.

“Get out,” he growls and Darcy glares at him but doesn’t argue. “Get the stuff from the trunk.”

She watches him stalk up to the front porch, bypassing the rotten-looking steps completely by jumping up onto the porch, and she’s half surprised the wood doesn’t just collapse beneath his weight.

Darcy sighs heavily and gets out of the car- her breath comes out in a white cloud of mist, the early morning cold and still. The metal latch that opens the trunk is bitingly cold when she opens it, and Darcy quickly tries to collect everything she can, but she falters at James’ bag of weapons- it’s far too heavy for her to even _lift_ from the car, let alone carry. She leaves it there, along with the blankets, and waddles awkwardly through the mess of shrubs and scratchy, thorned creepers up to the house. James passes her along the way, obviously headed back to the car to grab the rest of the stuff and Darcy sighs in relief.

She dumps everything on the porch and climbs onto it carefully; the stairs are rotten and water stained, but the porch itself is remarkably (and suspiciously) intact, strong enough that the wooden floor doesn’t so much as creak beneath her weight. She frowns at it in confusion, and glances up to peer curiously into the house itself, but it’s too dark inside, and Darcy can’t make out anything more than the faint reflection from a few plastic-draped pieces of furniture.

She bites her lip and ventures inside cautiously, pausing at the threshold to fumble blindly for a light switch. It’s one of the old ones, she finds, with the rounded wall fixture and the kind of switch that’s always stiff and hard to work. It makes a definitive _click_ when she flicks it on, and she can _hear_ the faint hum of electricity from it as the light above her gradually flickers to life. Darcy makes a soft sound of protest in the back of her throat at the sudden brightness, unused to the light after spending so long in the dark, and it takes some time to adjust.

There’s not much inside- the door leads into a large living room to the right, the few pieces of furniture covered carefully with sheets of plastic, covered with a thick layer of dust. Despite the size of the room, it feels abnormally small and claustrophobic, thanks to the boarded windows. To her right is what looks to be an office- the furniture once again protected with plastic from the years of disuse. The floor is dusty too, clearly showing the tread of James’ boots on the hardwood floor, leading through to the back of the house. Darcy retrieves her stuff and continues her awkward and grumpy waddle through the door, pulling their bags down in a pile in the living room.

“What is this place?” she asks when James returns, closing the door firmly behind him. He doesn’t answer; just dumps his own bags and their multitude of blankets on the floor with the rest of their stuff. “ _James_ ,” she asks again, turning to glare at him, “what _is_ this place? How did you know about it?”

The glare he returns is surly and troubled. He straightens to his full height and Darcy finds herself unconsciously doing the same. 

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says stiffly; Darcy knows exactly what's about to happen, and she turns away, bending down to do… well, she doesn’t know what. Mostly just avoid his baleful stare. Barnes growls.

“Don’t fucking bullshit me Lewis- you were ready to _kill_ him!”

“You know what?” she snarls, whirling around to face him as that ugly thing insider her snaps all over again. She feels as though she’s itching for a fight. “Maybe I was! Did you _fucking see_ what those… those _monsters_ had done to them? They butchered _children_! Played God with their bodies and twisted them into something of their own design!”

Barnes stares at her, looking as angry and confused as Darcy feels. “And what about that shit you said yesterday, huh? That crap about not killing anyone? You told me killing them was wrong! That it wasn’t gonna help; well how the _fuck_ was killing them yourself gonna be any better?”

“Well maybe I was wrong!” she shouts. Her hands tremble uncontrollably, curled into fists by her sides. “Those people were _monsters!_ Maybe- maybe we _should_ have put them all down! Save the world the trouble.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, staring at her as though seeing her truly for the first time. “I don’t believe you.”

Darcy flinches and sits her ass down on the cold wooden floor beside their gear before her legs give up the chase and do it for her. “I don’t believe me either,” she whispers, eyes burning. She chokes out a breathless sob. “Oh God- I was going to kill him!”

Silence from above, then the sound of Barnes kneeling beside her; the faint squeak of rubber-soled boots and scrape of denim on denim. “Hey,” he murmurs, crowding in close, voice soft. “ _Hey_. But you didn’t, Darcy. You didn’t kill him.”

“But I _wanted_ to!”

“Doesn’t matter. You didn’t pull the trigger, doll. That man’s still alive, because of you.”

She wraps a hand around her mouth, as though somehow she can hold the sobs inside her. Tears stream down her face, blood-hot and seeping past her hand, salt water on her tongue. James breathes out heavily, and slowly- hesitantly- reaches out to press a hand against her shoulder. Darcy almost flinches at the contact- not expecting him to touch her at all- but at the last moment she twists, wrapping her arms around his broad chest.

James stiffens and for a moment Darcy thinks she’s made the worst of mistakes, but then he’s sighing into her hair and wrapping his arms around her. His touch is so warm, without any kind of agenda and she’s struck by just how _long_ it’s been since somebody last touched her like this. And Darcy just _breaks_.  

James makes a low sound as she cries into his shoulder, the metal beneath his clothes warm but unforgiving. He shifts them easily, his flesh arm lifting and settling her between his legs so he can wrap himself around her fully, his metal arm pulling tight on her waist as his flesh hand lays against her hair. She feels his breath puff through her hair, and she sobs harder.

“Shhh,” he murmurs, sounding sad and a little lost. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Darcy clutches at his jacket, feeling like it’s very much _not_ okay. She’s shaken, frightened and angry. Appalled at Hydra. Appalled at herself. And maybe, worst of all, she’s _lonely_. She’s been on the road for _weeks,_ with little to no contact to Jane or Thor or Natasha, and it shows. And though Steve may be one of her closest friends, he had a new soulmate to discover and an endless stream of Hydra bases to burn to the ground, and even though he’d tried his hardest to include her, she’d fallen to the wayside more than once. She’d been happy, but isolated, cut off from her friends and family, in what felt like a vigilante mission with no possible ending in sight.

And then along comes James, stealing her away and making everything so much worse and better all at once.

She shudders against his grip, pressing herself against the lines of his torso. For the time being she doesn’t care what he must think of her, but if anything he just holds her tighter, and through the haze of her distress, Darcy wonders if touch like this means as much to him as it does to her. That thought, more than anything, begins to calm her. She comes back to herself slowly, the weeping subsiding into ungraceful sniffles as the tears begin to dry on her face.

Despite her growing calm, James doesn’t move, hand holding her in place with a strength Darcy finds comforting rather than stifling. The warmth of him is more than enough to keep the chill of the early morning at bay and they sit together, entwined in silence as Darcy’s breathing slowly returns to normal and the shaky feeling inside her subsides. She focuses on the slow rhythm of James’ breathing; the steady rise and fall of his chest against hers.

She’s sitting in his lap, she realises at some point, and the muted flush of embarrassment makes her pull away, fully intending to extricate herself from him. She’s stopped by the hand in her hair, and she bites her lip when he only lets her pull away far enough that he can look at her comfortably.

Darcy can feel herself going red as he looks at her, gaze thoughtful and almost curious. Her heartbeat thrums in her ears, growing faster the longer he stares, but she returns the favour- mostly out of necessity- and studies his face. She’s never been so close to him before, nor had the opportunity to look at him so. She wishes she could smooth away the creases on his skin with her fingers.

 “… Darcy,” James murmurs, gaze intense. His hand glides over her hair, thumb coming down to brush over the skin along her jaw. Darcy swallows nervously at the touch, running her tongue over dry lips and something in his eyes darkens. The hand at her back presses a little harder against her and Darcy’s eyes flutter at the pressure. It’s been so long since she’s felt this kind of safety- this kind of intimacy- and now she finds herself craving it; desperately.

Hesitantly, she leans forwards, tilting her head and looks at him through her lashes. She hears the sharp intake of breath and James’ thumb stills against her skin. “James,” she answers huskily- voice hoarse- and he leans forwards to close the gap.

Her stomach flops, hands fisting at the back of his jacket at the first touch of skin on skin, his lips warm and chapped. She breathes out slowly though her nose as her blood _sings_. This is what she could have had; this is what they _should_ have had.

He kisses her carefully, at first; slowly, hand cupping her cheek gently as though she’s made of glass. And Darcy _loves_ it, even if the way his mouth moves against hers is clumsy and chaste at first, the closeness to him- the sudden sense of _relief_ \- like she’s been waiting for this moment her whole life- more than makes up for it. She wonders if other soulmates feel this way, or if it’s unique to them and what they’ve been through.

She runs her tongue across the seam of his mouth, and he gasps, reciprocating tentatively. Darcy makes a low sound in the back of her throat and kisses him hard enough that she almost forgets how to breathe, desperation flooding through her strong enough to make her hands shake. James’ fingers tightens in her hair, and her hands creep up beneath his jacket, running across the broad muscles of his back.

He starts at the touch, and pulls back. Darcy growls and tries to follow him, but he shakes his head, lips bright red from kissing. “We shouldn’t,” he says, sounding conflicted. Darcy whimpers, and kisses the corner of his mouth softly, trying to covey her need through action alone. She doesn’t think she succeeds very well.  

“Please,” she begs him, mouthing the words against his stubbled jaw. “I just want to forget, for a while.”

But James is shaking his head, pushing her away with a firm hand, and even though he looks pained at the distressed sound she makes, he stays strong. “No, Darcy,” he sighs, and runs his hand over her head in a gentle caress. “No. Not today; not like this.”

She swallows thickly, rejection stinging like a slap in the face. “But I-”

“Not like this. Not after-’ he breaks off and Darcy swallows back her disappointment. She’s a big girl, she reasons. She can handle it. Understand it, even. She nods and James sighs again, visibly relieved. She leans back into him; rests her head on his shoulder and breathes out slowly. His arms tighten around her.

“Then can we… can we just stay like this?

“Yeah, Darcy,” he breathes and he burrows his nose into her hair. “Oh God, _yes_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmkay, so the house is kind of a mix between this house:
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> And this one:
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> It's not overly important, but I thought I'd share anyway. 
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> And omg you guys, this is 100% NOT what I had in mind when I said 'surprise' and I am so unbelievably angry with these characters right now you have NO IDEA. So mad. I mean, it's still nice and all, but not what I'd intended :I
> 
> This may be the only update you'll see for the next few weeks btw. I have lots of assessment to work on, and I can't be getting distracted by fic writing right now. So please, enjoy this and have patience :)


	17. The Cottonwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Darcy finds a cottontree, and James finds something else entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM BACK, and off to a cracking start!!!! Yayyyy XD

“Where are we?” Darcy asks some time later. James had at some point rearranged them so they were swaddled with blankets, entangled together on the hardwood floor. She’d dozed somewhere in between, too tired to keep herself awake when she was so warm and safe, and when she awoke, she found herself sprawled half on top of him. Darcy can still feel the cold seeping through the blankets into her knee, but she can’t find it in herself to care. It’s not entirely comfortable, but she isn’t looking for comfortable anyway; all she ever wanted was to be safe and _happy_.

“A safehouse,” he says eventually, his voice reverberating through her cheek pressed tight to his chest. Darcy looks up at him in surprise and confusion.

“What?” she asks slowly, perplexed. “You mean like a _Hydra_ safehouse? Isn’t that kind of counter-intuitive?”

James shakes his head minutely, fingers tightening around her shoulder. His face is expressionless, but for the tight lines around his eyes and mouth. He’s unhappy. “Not Hydra,” he says shortly. “It’s Alexander Pierce’s- or it was. He kept a few of them for himself, in case things went sideways and he needed a place to disappear to. Only a handful of people knew about them, and all of them are dead.”

“Except for you.”

He hums. He avoids her gaze, and Darcy kisses the skin of his neck softly. “Except for me.”

She chews on her lip. She has a feeling this is something he both wants to share and keep to himself. “And how do _you_ know about it?”

She watches the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. The warm, aged lights of the house cast his skin honey gold, warmer than he truly is. “He took me along, one time,” James frowns, thinking. “Back in ninety-five, I think. He wanted me for an off-the-books job. I remember the route here out from Denver.”

“How can you be sure no one else knows about them?” Darcy asks, still not entirely sure why he’s taken them here. She shifts on top of him, propping her chin on her arm so she can see him properly.

The look James gives her is nothing short of haunted.

“I know,” he replies, and never has Darcy heard such pain in a man’s voice before. “Because I was the one who killed them… and buried their bones in the yard so no one could find them.”

She swallows, floored. Darcy’s always been aware on some level of what he’d done for Hydra, but it’s one thing to think abstractly about what the Winter Soldier has done… and another thing entirely to hear of his work directly from him. “Oh,” she says softly. James shifts uncomfortably beneath her and she pets his shoulder soothingly. “But that means we’re safe, right? No one knows this place exists?”

He laughs, bitter. “There’s no such thing as _safe_ , doll. Not so long as you’re around me.”

Darcy glares at him, though from her position on his chest, she’s not so sure she gets her point across. “You’ve kept me safe so far,” she points out.

The crease between his brows grows deeper, and her picks up her hand, showing her the yellow-green bruises on her wrist. “Safe,” he murmurs, disbelieving.

Darcy sighs, and rests her head back on his chest, searching for the sound of his heartbeat. “I forgive you. And I trust you.”

He makes an incredulous sound and sits up abruptly. Darcy yelps at the sudden change in positions, glaring at him. “That’s not the point,” he insists, eyes growing wide. Darcy doesn’t know if it’s from panic, or a desire to get his point across. “I can’t- I’m not _safe_ , Darcy. I can’t keep you safe from _me!_ ”

“You haven’t-”

“You’ve only seen me on my good days!” he snaps, irritation flickering across his face almost too quickly to catch. Darcy spares a moment to wonder what happened to the peaceful tranquillity of five minutes ago. “You’re lucky, you know? _So_ lucky. There have be _so many_ times when I could have snapped your neck- broken your bones and left you for dead without a single thought! I could hurt you Darcy- _again_. Worse than before,” he clutches her shoulders, staring at her desperately.

“I know,” she says solemnly and his eyes widen in surprise, as though he didn’t expect her to agree with him. “I know you’re dangerous- I know you could hurt me.”

“Then why are you _still_ _here?_ Why didn’t you leave with the kids when you had the chance?”

Darcy blinks back the sudden stinging in her eyes. The sinuses in her nose burn. There’s something so despondent in his voice- so terrified and confused. She gets off him; kneels at his side on the hardwood floor. “Because it’s my choice. And I don’t think you should be alone.”

He looks so confused- so despairing. Like he doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. She opens her mouth to say something more, but there are no words. James beats her to it.

“I can’t do this,” he whispers- more to himself and to her- and Darcy flinches. “I thought I could, but I can’t- I _can’t-_ ”

And Darcy watches him stand, despising herself. She feels cold and empty without him near, moving further away, the look on his face conflicted when he glances back at her from the front door.

“You can’t do what?” she asks, feeling uncharacteristically belligerent.

“This!” he motions between them with his flesh hand, movements frantic. “Whatever _this_ is- whatever I- whatever you want from me- we can’t have it! I can’t have the life. And I…” he glances down at his hand, wrapped around the door handle. “I need some air.”

“James!” she calls out sharply, and he pauses, halfway through the motion of opening the door. He doesn’t look up at her. “I don’t care what you think you deserve. No one deserves to live their lives in exile. Least of all you.”

James says nothing; just opens the door all the way and leaves, door slamming behind him. Darcy breathes out slowly and collapses back down onto the floor, uncaring that she’s likely getting dust in her hair. She’s tired- worn out, feeling conflicted about her actions this morning. The last six hours feel like a dream- like something that didn’t truly happen to her, and Darcy feels light-headed at the thought of everything she’d tried to do.

She tried to kill a man; tried to blast his brains out back of his head. And then to make things worse, she tried to _sleep with James. James_ , the amnesiac assassin with more problems than she can poke a stick at, who half the time is lucky to manage holding a full conversation with her, let alone _sleep_ with her.

Jesus Christ. What the hell is wrong with her?

She breathes out slowly, taking a moment to wallow, before pushing the self-pity away. She’s better than this; she’s _been through_ this already…

Darcy should tell him.

It’s unfair to keep the whole soulmate thing a secret. And it’s not as though she can keep it a secret for long; sooner or later he’s going to remember her, and then what? It’s not like she can just plead ignorance and leave it be. The tension ratchets up in her gut, a heavy pit of dread sitting in the bottom of her stomach. Darcy sighs again, and sits up. She may be tired as fuck, but there’s no hope in getting some shut-eye with all this anxiety running through her head.

She pulls herself up, grimacing a little as the sudden change in altitude makes dark spots form in her vision, and she stands as they dissipate. She glances around her at the room. The furnishings are sparse and old-fashioned, and she moves forward to pull off the plastic covering the sofa. She sneezes at the clouds of dust that rise up from it and bites her lip to hide her distaste. The sofa itself looks like it would belong at her grandma’s; yellow floral print that was never in style but always popular. She doesn’t try to sit on it, though the sofa looks brand new, the thought that Alexander Pierce has once touched it puts her off completely.

Pierce.

A vague feeling of unease settles over her, and she glances around the room. All of this was Peirce’s. She doesn’t know what Bucky was thinking, taking them here; surely the place would be triggering as all get out for him. It’s bad enough for Darcy, and she’s never even met the man. Just knows of him by reputation, and the little she’s managed to glean from Steve on the odd occasion he’s been willing to talk.

Darcy wipes her hands on her jeans absently, glancing down at the hardwood floor. They’ve left clear marks in the dust, and she follows the treads of James’ boots leading further into the house. The wallpaper is plain, but peeling slightly at the edges, and the only thing attached to the wall of the corridor is a framed painting of an abstract landscape; cool greys and a warm sepia. There’s something vaguely unsettling about the piece, and Darcy moves on, following the footsteps into the kitchen.

She blinks at the space in surprise; it’s homey, in a way that Darcy hadn’t really expected. Light streams through from the lace curtains, a discoloured yellow from age and accumulated dirt. The round wooden table is covered in plastic, like the rest of the house, and their food has been unceremoniously dumped on top of it, uncaring of the filth. The kitchen benches- a pastel green that matches the tiles on the walls- aren’t covered, and Darcy grimaces at the thought of cleaning them. The refrigerator- tastefully old-fashioned- stands silent beside the stove, and she walks over to it, looking for its plug. It softly splutters into life when she snaps it into a power point, and she trails her fingers across the cool white enamel as she wanders across to the back door, trying the handle.

It’s locked, but a quick search for a key finds one in the cutlery drawer and Darcy smiles as she unlocks it, the bolt snapping into place with a _click_ that sounds deafening in the oppressive silence of the house. She opens the door slowly, and the hinges creak in defiance.

“Oh shush you,” she tells it absently, and pockets the key, stepping cautiously through the doorway and onto an enclosed patio, the paint on the wooden railing as chipped and peeling as the rest of the house outside. “For the head of Hydra,” she muses to herself, stepping up to the railing to look out on the long grass and creeping shrubs behind the house, “this place is a lot shittier than I’d have thought it would be.”

She picks at the peeling paint and stares out at the landscape. The safehouse is on a slight hill, and the grasslands- overgrown and stippled with the odd tree- stretch out beyond; a sprawl of green and yellow-brown, broken only by a long line of trees in the distance. The early morning casts a golden light on everything, and there’s something eerily peaceful about the place. It’s hard to think that a place like this has such a dark history.

She stays outside for what feels like an age, staring out at the grasslands as she lets the soft sounds of nature fill her mind, the worries of the day fading away to nothing more than the cooing of doves and the odd warbled birdcall. She breathes in deeply through her diaphragm, and feels the tension in her shoulders slowly ease away with each exhale. It’s still cold enough that her breath turns to mist on the way out, and her nose and tips of her ears are cold to the touch.

Darcy returns, eventually, to the kitchen, and begins exploring the place anew, wondering what secrets she can scrounge up from Alexander Pierce’s house.

 

* * *

 

She finds him outside, crouched beneath the warped and twisted body of a cottonwood, a little down the hill. Leafless, but covered in yellow, hanging catkins, Darcy spares a moment of thanks that she doesn’t suffer from hayfever. James doesn’t look up at her approach, gaze focused pointedly at the ground. His hands hang limply between his legs.

“James?”

“I buried them here.”

_Oh._

She doesn’t need to ask what he means by that. Darcy swallows, looking around. The ground is covered by a thick layer of decomposing leaves; no sign of long-forgotten bodies or suspicious mounds of dirt, though she’s not sure what she expected. Twenty years is a long time for the Earth to hide past sins.

Darcy sits beside him without asking permission and he sucks in a breath, as though to say something, but never does.

“It wasn’t you,” she says to the sprawling countryside. He huffs a bitter laugh.

“I know,” he says darkly, and stares at the rotting plant matter beneath his boots. “I get that it wasn’t me- that they made me do these… things- _God_ \- but,” he sniffs, “I _wanted_ to. The chair- it _twisted_ something inside me. Made me want to comply.”

Darcy moves slowly, telegraphing her movements as she bridges the space between them to hold his hand. The metal is cool and smooth beneath her fingers, and though Bucky doesn’t squeeze back, she feels the light brush of his thumb across her knuckles. “What they did to you James… it was _monstrous_. That you came out of it at all is a miracle; not many could have done the same.”

His head tilts to stare at their joined hands and he licks his lips. He looks so _sad_. “I think… somewhere along the line I forgot how to be afraid. All I could ever do was what they told me and I just… I just wanted to _survive_.”

The back of Darcy’s eyes burn, and she stares down at their joined hands as she wills the tears to leave. The sleeve of her sweater has fallen away, exposing her wrist, and in the mottled light beneath the cottonwood, her scars are a faded maroon. Darcy feels the weight of his gaze on her words as sure as any touch, and she swallows thickly, even as his brows draw together in a frown.

James lifts their hands higher, and Darcy feels an odd sense of foreboding as he studies her wrist. She shivers, but doesn’t pull away when he touches the warped skin with his flesh hand, and he tugs his hand away as though burned, a frisson of energy licking up her spine at the touch. Darcy’s pulse thunders in her ears and she watches him carefully as he looks up at her from beneath his lashes.

“I keep thinking,” he says slowly, impassive, “of how familiar you are. Like an echo… but I can’t remember from what.” He traces over her words again, more boldly this time, and Darcy sucks in a sharp breath, hand clenching in his grip. “These marks are so familiar,” he muses, gaze returning to her wrist, “and I keep wondering… what man in their right mind would ever want to leave you.”

“It was the wrong time,” she says softly, feeling impossibly sad, and the moment the words escape her mouth she knows it’s the wrong thing to say. His hand tightens, sucking in a breath of shock.

“The wrong… time?”

Darcy swallows and licks her lips nervously. She needs to tell him. “James-” she tries, but the words die in her throat at the bewildered look on his face.

“I… I _remember_ you…” he breathes, staring up at her as though seeing her for the first time. Darcy tries to move away, but succeeds only in drawing attention back to her arm. He frowns. “The dreams,” he murmurs, and Darcy doesn’t understand but she can guess, and she tries to pull away with more force but James’ grip doesn’t falter. He looks up at her, studying her face, then back down at the words, pulling her wrist closer to his face.

“Why do I keep dreaming of you?” he asks. “Why do I see you in my dreams… with- with _him_?”

“Who?”

“Bucky,” he says darkly. “I see you with Bucky Barnes. And your words- they were red… like blood, I remember.”

Darcy’s hands tremble. She wants to lie- tell him that maybe they just look the same, but it’s like there’s a stone weight pressing against her chest, stealing the words from her mouth. She watches on in a distant kind of horror as the realisation slowly dawns on his face.

“They’re not just dreams, are they?”

Darcy shakes her head mutely, and he drops her hand as though burnt. “They’re _real?_ ”

She nods, and the pained look of confusion that spreads across his face just about breaks her heart.

“But I don’t understand… she- you… you were my _soulmate_.”

Darcy nods again and he sucks in a sharp breath of shock, falling backwards onto his ass, as though trying to distance himself. _Maybe he is_ , she thinks despairingly.

“But that was back in-”

“1944. I know.”

“ _How?_ ”

Darcy glances away, unable to look at him. It seems inappropriate to hold a conversation like this over the bones of the forgotten, but she knows James won’t leave. “There was an accident in Jane’s lab,” she says miserably, picking at the edges of her sweater. “I still don’t know what it was, but-” her breath hitches in her throat, but she pushes on, voice wavering, “-it whatever it was, it sent me back to World War two.”

“But you… left me. You _left me_.” He speaks slowly, but with growing surety, some doomed fire sparking to life in his eyes. Darcy closes her eyes, unable to bear the sight of him.

“I didn’t belong there. I had to go home.”

“Did you?” James asks coldly and Darcy opens her eyes against her will.

“I knew the history books, and for all intents and purposes, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers left for the war and neither came home. I _couldn’t_ stay, even if I wanted to. There were people who needed me; people who loved me.”

“Even if you _wanted to?”_

“Well what did you expect?” she snaps, anger flaring up. “I wasn’t about to live through the rest of the war knowing that _whatever_ I did- whatever _we_ did- I’d have to lose you by the end of it!”

“So you left me,” he says, and there is an anger to his voice- something savage in his eyes- that makes Darcy flinch and look away. The betrayal on his face is a tangible thing. “I- I _remember_ you leaving me! Twenty-six years a blank, and then you turn up- like a fucking angel- and you _left!_ ”

“I did,” she breathes as tears slide, blood hot, down her cheeks. “And it’s the thing I regret the most. But I’d do it again, if I had to.”

The silence that grows between them is frigid and fraught with tension.

“Why did you never say anything?” he asks, hard voice cutting through the silence. “Why did you never bother to stay? Am I- was I not _worthy?_ Not worth the time- not worth the effort? Did you-”

“Stop,” she pleads as his voice turns beseeching. “Please, James-”

“Did you hope I’d just never remember? That I wouldn’t care about who you’re meant to be to me?” He curls his lips back in a snarl, ugly and vicious. “Or maybe _you_ couldn’t handle it? Were you waiting for me to become ‘ _normal_ ’? All well and good to have _Bucky Barnes_ as your soulmate, but the Winter Soldier? Oh _no_. He’s too quiet. Too brutal. Too _broken-_ ”

“I said _stop!_ ” she screams at him. James falls silent. Her hands dig into the cold, decayed leaf matter as she heaves herself up and he joins her. They stare at each other in their self-imposed standoff, chests heaving as though they’ve run a mile. “What was I supposed to say, James?” Darcy demands, angry that she’s crying and crying ‘cause she’s angry. “ ‘Hey there, Winter Soldier! I know you’ve just _kidnapped_ me, but guess what? We’re soulmates! Surprise!’ ”

“You could have-”

“ _No_ , I _couldn’t_ have! You were forty days out of Hydra captivity and monosyllabic at the best of times! For _fuck’s_ _sake_ James, you didn’t even think you were a _person_. You’d been through enough- had enough shit on your plate already. I couldn’t just tell you that ‘hey, by the way, the woman you just kidnapped? She’s your fucking time-travelling soulmate’!” Darcy’s voice breaks at the end, a fresh wave of tears surely turning her red-faced and blotchy. What a sight she must make, but James- though silent- never looks away.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” he asks eventually. His face has turned impassive again, and Darcy takes a moment to memorise his every feature, searing the image into her mind. She tries to tell him something- say ‘yes’, say ‘of course’, say ‘ _I love you_ ’- but the words dry up in her throat; the lies catching behind the anger and the tears and every ugly, truthful thing between them brought to light.  

Darcy is the first to look away and James breathes out slowly. “Fine,” he says coldly, and the tone cuts straight through her soul. She wonders what happened to all that air in her lungs, gasping for air like a woman drowned.

“I guess you’re not who I thought you were.”

Darcy bites back a sob and collapses to the ground, but all James does is turn around and walk away. She cries in earnest, the sound of his boots crumpling the leaf matter loud enough to deafen and she curls into a ball on the cold ground as James’ presence fades to nothing more than a door slamming closed.

“Oh God,” she gasps to the bones hidden beneath the cottonwood. “Oh God, what have I done?”

There is no answer. Only the soft sigh of the wind, blowing through skeletal limbs and Darcy’s breathy, ugly sobs to keep her company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The house, when Darcy manages to drag herself back, is empty and silent as the grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *coughs*
> 
> so- uh- the good news is, we are now on the homeward stretch. Some of you may have noticed that I've put in a final chapter count... this may be subject to change, but I'm hoping to keep it to 6 chapters. But we'll see. 
> 
> The bad news is, I am a terrible writer and I can't give you a definite time as to when the next chapter will be up. I'm on prac RN, so half my nights are spent writing up lesson plans. ^.^'


	18. The Thorns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I told people it might be a while before the next chapter came out, but apparently this chapter wanted to be written and I got it out in a day (a DAY! Golly-gee-whillackers that's impressive for me). So congrats to you guys :P

It takes Darcy an embarrassingly long time to realise that the car is gone.

The revelation floors her; somehow, she’d managed to fool herself into thinking James had just run off. A temporary problem that she can fix when returns, but there’s a finality to the missing car that holds greater weight to her than the empty house, haunted by the ghost of Alexander Pierce.

She stands in the gravel where the SUV once stood and stares down the long driveway, trying in vain to blink away her tears. The pain clutching at her chest feels very much like guilt, and for a moment Darcy contemplates running after the tire tracks- still clear in the dirt. But it’s been at least an hour and a half, and she knows with an inexplicable certainty that James is long gone.

“Fucking hell,” she says with feeling, and covers her eyes with a shaking hand, tilting her head back as she grimaces. She starts pacing, trying to work out the mounting horror and guilt that courses through her.

“You really fucked up this time,” she tells herself, and kicks at the ground viciously. “He’s fucking left you; congrat-u- _fucking_ -lations.” She sniffles and doesn’t bother wiping away the tears that have started falling anyway. “Oh God. What a fucking mess.”

The property is silent but for a crow, croaking from an overgrown shrub beside the house, and she keeps pacing, sneakers crunching on the gravel. The reality of her situation starts to kick in, and Darcy starts wondering how the hell she’s going to get out of this mess. She’s stuck smack bang in the middle of a maze of back roads and lanes, with no phone, no computer or internet or car. Just a bag of clothes and shoes that have seen better days.

“Okay,” she breathes, wringing her hands together as though that can somehow stop the inevitable panic attack. “ _Okay_. Maybe he just went out to get supplies, or cool off. Maybe he’ll come back- he _has_ to come back.” The shaking in her hands grows more pronounced and the crow continues croaking; a protracted and mournful sound that sets her teeth on edge. She doesn’t believe what she’s saying; his gear has disappeared too, now that she thinks about it.

Darcy gasps for breath. “ _Oh God,_ ” she whimpers. “Oh shit, I’m so _royally fucked_.” She sobs again, feet pausing in their pacing and she bends in half, resting her hands on her knees as she tries to get her breathing back under control. Tears drip- hot like blood- from her cheeks and she squeezes her eyes tight, keening a little.

She can’t believe it. Never has she done something as fucked up as she’s done with James and frankly Darcy is at a loss of what to do in the aftermath, beyond trying to keep calm and _that’s_ clearly failing. She can’t even find it in herself to be angry at him for abandoning her. All she can think about is how she’s hurt him; badly enough for him to leave. She can’t even fathom how _betrayed_ he must feel.

The crow continues to croak at her and something in Darcy _snaps._

 _“Shut up!_ ” she screams at it, and runs at the bush. The crow flutters away with a disgusted squawk and Darcy screams again, tearing at the thorned bush with a fury that feels both terrifying and cathartic. She shreds her hands on the bark, thorns digging into the soft flesh of her palms but she doesn’t care, screeching and yelling and crying her rage at the hapless garden. Plants fly around her and her head is filled with the scent of sap and _green_ , hands turning sticky with blood or sap- she doesn’t care.

“Fucking _fuck!_ ” she cries. “Shit- _fuck_! You idiot! How could you!” she sobs. “How _could_ you?” Darcy doesn’t even know who she’s asking at this point, but her breath is coming short in her chest, heart racing. She falls to her knees amongst the overgrown plants and curls in on herself again.

Darcy doesn’t know how long she stays there for, but it takes a long time for her to calm down again and realise that her hands feel like they’re burning. She lifts them up to stare at them, feeling oddly calm and serene now that she’s had her tantrum- the second one today, and she can’t even find the energy to feel embarrassed about it. Her hands are covered in splinters, and some of her knuckles are encrusted with sap, dirt and blood. The burning intensifies when she curls her fingers into fists and Darcy grimaces.

 She stands on unsteady legs, moving without even thinking towards the front door, ignoring the way the steps creak beneath her weight and the loud _bang_ as the door slams behind her. She moves, trancelike, through the house and into the kitchen, collapsing onto one of the sturdy padded chairs. She stares at the wooden grain on the kitchen table. The house is as silent as her mind, the only thing she can hear the ringing in her ears- so loud it’s almost deafening. The food they’d bought the other day sits on the table, forgotten, and Darcy ignores it.

She stays there until her ass turns numb, focused only on the slow push and pull of her breathing and the way her eyelids grow heavy. Her head starts nodding, unsteady, and she sighs gustily, leaning forward to rest her head on the table. She’s just so _tired_. She wants to go home.

Darcy closes her eyes, sighs again, and lets herself falls asleep, right there at the table where Alexander Pierce would have once sat and had his breakfast.  

* * *

 

She wakes with a start, a name on her tongue and the rapidly dissipating memory of chasing after a man with dark hair and an arm that gleams. There’s a hollow feeling in her chest- from hunger or guilt, Darcy can’t find the energy to decipher- and the burning in her hands has escalated to a pointed throbbing. She breathes out slowly as she opens her eyes. The kitchen is dark, the sun obviously having set some time ago, and she swallows thickly, grimacing as she straightens and stretches her aching limbs.

She doesn’t feel well rested- in fact, she still feels as though she could sleep a week and still be tired- and her head throbs in protest when she stands up, stumbling over to wall to turn on the light, and then to the sink to pour herself a glass of water. The water runs red with rust, and in her sleep-addled mind, Darcy mistakes it for blood for a moment. She grits her teeth and waits for the water to run clear; it tastes strongly of metal but she drains the whole glass anyway and pours herself another.

So focused on watching her glass fill with water, Darcy almost misses the faint sound of a door creaking. She freezes, heart stuttering in her chest. Slowly, she turns the tap off and sets her glass down in the sink. Fear makes her hands shake, and her mind fills with images of men in black tactical gear and guns creeping through the house. James wouldn’t do that to her though, would he? She knew he was angry and hurt, but even hurt, Darcy can’t fathom the possibility of him selling her out like that.

 _Still_ , a traitorous voice whispers in the back of her mind, _he left you here alone. Who’s to say he’s not mad enough to try?_

 _Find a weapon,_ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Natasha orders her. Her eyes scan the kitchen, looking for something to use as a weapon and they land on the cutlery drawer. She opens it as quietly as she can and could almost cry with relief when she spies several knives, gleaming brightly at her as though brand new. She picks up the longest one; the weight a comfort as she creeps around the edge of the room, moving to the other doorway to lie in wait.

Darcy stands there, motionless, holding her breath lest she makes a noise, and her heart skips another beat with fear when she hears the soft scuff of stiff boots on hardwood floorboards. The treads come closer, and Darcy’s world narrows to the knife in her hand and her slowly approaching assailant.

She springs on them silently as soon as they walk through the doorway, and the man- dressed in jeans and a dark Henley- yelps loudly, arm coming up to grip her wrist before she get the knife to their throat. Another hand comes up and she is shoved, hard, against the wall. Her knife clatters to the floor, miraculously avoiding them as it falls.

There is a moment of stillness. Then-

“ _Darcy?_ ”

She gapes at the man in shock, heartbeat thundering in her ears. Her headache throbs violently. “Steve?”

He releases her as though burnt, and his hands run over her lightly, checking her for injuries. “Oh my God,” he breathes, taking her in for a moment before pulling her in for an impossibly tight hug. “Thank God, _Darcy_.”

Her arms come up to clutch at the back of his Henley purely on muscle memory. The warmth of him is so familiar her breath catches in her chest. “I don’t understand,” she confesses to his chest, pressed up tight against her cheek.

“Steve?” she hears someone else say- Sam- and Steve lets her pull back just enough to peep past him and smile at Sam.

“Hey.”

“Darcy,” the man breathes, looking surprised and relieved, and behind him, she can see Natasha, face partly in shadows. “You’re okay.”

She tilts her head in confusion, in something of a daze. “Why… wouldn’t I be?”

“We got a call,” Natasha tells her, and elbows her way past Sam and forcibly prying her away from Steve so she can wrap herself around Darcy. Darcy lets herself be manhandled by the older woman, and makes a soft sound at the back of her throat when Natasha’s hug is even tighter than Steve’s. “You had us scared, птичка,” she murmurs into Darcy’s hair, one hand gently caressing her back. “Good thinking at the Safeway. Thank-you.”

“A call?” she asks dumbly, still shocked.

Natasha pulls back and Darcy misses her almost instantly. She takes both of Darcy’s hands, rubbing her thumbs over the backs of them as though reassuring herself that she’s still here. “Barnes called us; told us to get to these coordinates.”

Darcy blanches. “James called you?”

Something odd crosses Natasha’s face. “‘James’?” she asks, looking displeased. Darcy opens her mouth, but the words dry up before she can even get them out.

“We’d managed to track you back to Denver- were already on the way there when we got the call,” Steve offers in explanation. He smiles at her in sympathy. “Bucky said to get here quick.”

She swallows thickly, glancing away from the three of them. “What else did he say?”

“Nothing,” Natasha says, maybe a little too quickly for her liking, and the gravity of the situation finally hits Darcy. Her hands start to shake again and Natasha, sensing her distress, directs her over to the table, sitting her down in a chair. Darcy hears her suck in a sharp breath when she notices her hands, and the woman turns her hands over, inspecting the damage. “What happened to your hands?” she demands and Darcy flinches at the tone. She softens it when she speaks again in apology. “Did he hurt you?”

“ _No!_ ” she snaps. Natasha’s eyes narrow, but she mercifully holds her tongue and bends her head to inspect the damage. “He didn’t-” she tries, and stops. She grits her teeth and tries again. “He never hurt me.”

Natasha’s fingers linger accusingly on the yellowed bruises on her wrists and her scabbed hands, still filthy. “So you’re saying these are just self-inflicted?”

Darcy bites her tongue, glaring at Natasha, but the woman just stares back at her, unapologetic. Darcy is the one to give into the staring contest glancing away, shamefaced. “It wasn’t like that- he didn’t mean to.”

“Darcy,” Natasha says slowly, and beside her, Sam drops a portable med kit on the table. The woman sends him a grateful look. “I want you to think very carefully about what you just said.”

Darcy stares at her in confusion for a moment, before it clicks and her scowl grows more pronounced. “I know what you’re thinking and you can cut it our _right now_ ,” she growls, eyes flashing dangerously. “I am _not_ suffering from Stockholm’s or whatever bullshit reason you’re cooking up in your head Nat. Those bruises are from _days ago._ He never- he was always above board. The perfect gentleman.”

“He _abandoned_ you here.”

She clenches her hands into fists, ignoring the pain that lances up her arms at the movement. “It’s nothing I didn’t deserve,” she confesses lowly. Natasha looks visibly startled at the declaration, and shares a guarded look with Sam. Darcy ignores them in favour of feeling sorry for herself, and Natasha focuses her attentions back on her hands, cleaning them with saline solution and a triangular bandage. Sam pulls up a chair to join them and Steve wanders off, sending a guilty and troubled look her way as he does.

“He’s in Natasha’s bad books,” he explains to her as Natasha works, obviously aiming for an attempt at brevity. Natasha bares her teeth at the statement and looks up to glare at him.

“You’re _both_ in my bad books, Wilson,” she says, and Darcy is startled by the venom in her voice. Sam holds up his hands in placation and Natasha _tch_ ’s at him and continues dabbing lightly at her hands.

“Why?”

Natasha looks up at Darcy, pausing. “Why?” she echoes, sounding belligerent. “Darcy they _lost_ you. They let _Barnes-_ an amnesiac Hydra _assassin_ \- steal you from right under their noses. The four of you were hardly working in any kind of _legal_ capacity; that kind of negligence could have had you killed- or worse.”

Darcy frowns at her. “He’s not like that.”

Natasha sets her jaw. “So you can tell me honestly, that there wasn’t a single time that you were with him that you feared for your life?”

Darcy makes a choice and pleads the fifth, and Natasha’s eyes flash with victory. She opens a tube of cream and squeezes a small amount onto Darcy’s hands, rubbing it into her skin with a gentleness that belies her unhappy expression. Darcy sucks in a sharp breath as the cream makes her skin tingle and turn numb, and Nat glances up at before turning away to pluck some kind of needle-looking implement out of the kit. Darcy bites her lip at the sight of it and looks away. Sam smiles at her in sympathy.

“Maybe he’s not like that anymore, Darcy, but that man has enough baggage to fill a Boeing 747. Being with him- _alone,_ for any period of time _…_ it’s not healthy.”

Darcy bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from snapping at the woman, because she knows she’s right. Or- perhaps more to the point- she knows she’s never going to manage to persuade her otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” she says instead, and Natasha tugs her hand sharply, making her turn to look at her.

“ _Don’t say that_ ,” Natasha tells her vehemently. Darcy bites her lip. “Don’t- don’t try to excuse his behaviour, Darcy. Don’t go putting that on yourself.”

Tears spring, unbidden, from her eyes, and her face crumples. “But I fucked up, Nat.”

“No, Darcy,” she hums, setting aside the lancing tool and pulling Darcy forwards, wrapping her arms around her again. “No, птичка. You never fucked up; you did everything right.”

“I _did_ ,” Darcy insists into the collar of Natasha’s leather jacket, teary. And fuck it all, but she’s so goddamn _sick_ of crying. “ _I did!_ But I didn’t want to- want to decide his fate for him so I never _told_ him and now he’s _gone!_ ”

“птичка,” Natasha murmurs, hand coming up to brush softly across her hair and the touch is so similar to this morning that it’s enough to make Darcy’s stomach turn. “Don’t blame yourself. You did what you thought was right.”

“But I _hurt_ _him_!”

“And he _abandoned_ you here. You’re not the one at fault here,” Natasha says, a hardness creeping into her voice that only succeeds in making Darcy cry harder. She wishes she could stop but everything is so messed up and she’s so tired. “It’s okay,” Natasha murmurs, rocking her a little. And maybe it’s because of everything that’s happened today, but Darcy is quick to settle back down. “ _It’s okay_. We’re here- you’re safe. You’re okay.”

Darcy laughs wetly at that and pulls away. She realises that Sam’s been sitting with them the whole time and she flushes, but there’s no judgement in his eyes. “I don’t feel very okay,” she croaks, and tries to rub away her tears with the back of her hands.

“Well that’s alright, because your hands don’t look okay either,” Natasha jokes and Darcy laughs again, though it’s not funny. She lets Natasha pull her hands away so she can keep working on them and Sam gets up to pour her another glass of water.

“Sorry,” she tells him, taking it out of his hand gingerly. He smiles and rests a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t gotta apologise, Darce.” He presses his lips together unhappily and Darcy looks away, carefully sipping the water. “We should have been more careful; Barnes should never have been able to get near you.”

She grits her teeth and says nothing, focusing instead on the odd tugging and scraping sensation on her hand as Natasha quickly and efficiently removes her splinters. When she’s done, she wipes the skin down with betadine and wraps her hand carefully with a soft bandage, which seems like overkill, but Darcy’s not about to complain.

“I think you should start seeing Doctor Patel again,” Natasha breaks the strained silence as she moves onto Darcy’s other hand. Darcy pulls a face.

“But-”

“ _No,_ Darcy,” she says firmly, shaking her head as she works. “I don’t think so. This stint with Barnes has got you all messed up; you’re done here. You’re going home, and you’re seeing Doctor Patel, or I’ll sic Jane on you.”

She wants to argue; she really does. But Darcy is so tired and frankly, the thought of coming back home feels like such a relief that she could almost start crying again. She doesn’t think she could say anything even if she tried. She nods instead, and Natasha pauses to send her a grateful smile.

Sam stands again, pulling out his phone. “I’ll give Stark a call,” he explains. “Get him to have the Tower ready.”

“Okay,” Darcy says softly and Sam exits the room. She hears him speaking lowly in the other room. Natasha doesn’t look up from Darcy’s hands.

“Thank-you,” the master assassin says lowly and Darcy nods at her numbly.

“It’s okay,” she replies. “Jane’s probably got a million things for me to do, anyway.”

Natasha snorts. “Probably. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Sorry things between you and Barnes went sour.”

Darcy swallows thickly and closes her eyes, trying to banish the image of his anguished face from her mind. “I guess some things just aren’t meant to be.”

“Maybe…” Natasha starts, hesitant, “maybe it’s still just the wrong time.”

Darcy makes an involuntary sound at the back of her throat and screws her face up into a pained grimace. “We’ll see,” she says, and Natasha at least, has the grace to leave it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KINDLY IGNORE HOW MUCH DARCY'S BEEN CRYING RECENTLY, PLEASE AND THANK-YOU.  
> (and okay, maybe it's not bugging you guys, but it's driven me a little crazy, BUT WHATEVER)
> 
> Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go weep in a corner over my endless pile of year 9 newspaper articles...


	19. The Symmetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He never even saw her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmkay so I think I told a couple of people in the last chapter that I attempted to write a chapter from Bucky's POV and we just weren't meshing, but I lied. Or rather, I gave it another go today and managed to whip this out in a few hours, so yay. 
> 
> I am seriously milking the symmetry/parallels between Darcy and Bucky's situation in this chapter.

He regrets his decision almost as soon as he throws the destroyed phone out the window.

He contemplates, for a long moment, turning the car around and heading straight back to her, but…

Words. _Her words_. Her words she _kept_ from him.

His ribs itch, but the sensation is a familiar one. One that can’t be scratched. Not by him. Never by him.

He keeps himself together with sheer force of will, stubbornly keeping all thoughts of _her_ out of his mind for a good hour and a half. But, like all things, the tranquillity doesn’t last.

 _Traitor_ , a dark voice whispers on loop in the recesses of his mind, with growing intensity. He grits his teeth and does his best to ignore it; he cannot trust that voice. Cannot let it take hold, grip into darker places where even _her_ light cannot reach.

The cold purpose of before, when he’d left Pierce’s safehouse and called Rogers, is gone and no amount of hard-won focus can bring it back, thoughts overcome with guilt and anger and grief. His mind replays his memories of her, one overlapping the other, marred by his different psyches.

Darcy; dirty and scared, with marks so clear his heart aches at the sight of them. _Darcy_ ; wrist scarred, gaze amused, the smile on her lips sharp enough to cut his soul in two. Her brightness such a wonder in the mud and blood and horror of Europe, and how he hated making her cry (and how he loathed Howard for treating her like some kind of ghastly experiment). The warmth of her beside him, letting him touch her words with his blood-stained hands.

Hope- _hope_ \- couldn’t let himself hope. Could let himself be sucked into the fantasy of having someone so perfectly made for him, not stuck knee-deep in hell. And then that _thing_ and she was gone. Proving exactly what he feared, yet somehow still a surprise. Hope- _hope_ \- had to let himself hope. Trust in Darcy with her smiling eyes and irreverent wit, trapped together in ever-changing cars, her arms wrapped around his chest in the early hours of the morning. And then those _words_ , ruining everything. Unexpected, yet somehow still not a surprise.

He can’t remember what he did after she left, but he can still feel the rage and betrayal and grief of that man, as though etched into his soul.

He pulls into a side road, flying down it at speeds unlikely to be legal.

He never even saw her smile.

He stops abruptly, slamming the breaks so hard that it’s only his arms locked against the steering wheel that stops him from flying forwards, and turns off the car, rage an incessant itch beneath his skin. His blood feels like it’s boiling. He gets out, slamming the door closed with such force that the glass in the window shatters.

He stands there in something close to shock, staring at the glass. He can feel his pulse accelerating and the anger and hurt multiplying, breath growing heavier until something in him finally _snaps_ and he screams- wordless and guttural- and launches himself at the car, metal arm first.

He tears through the door, wrenching the crippled frame and tossing it away as though it weighs nothing. The sound of it clattering to the ground reaches him only distantly, but he is too intent, wrapped in his microcosm of pain and hurt and fear and unbridled fury. The feeling is exhilarating and terrifying all at once; he can’t remember the last time he ever felt this way.

 _Maybe the last time she left you_ , a traitorous voice murmurs and he screams again. He moves in a frenzy, the air filling with the sound of screeching metal and breaking glass. Screams and animalistic howls.

He collapses to the ground at some point, amongst fragments of glass and torn metal. His face feels wet, but when he touches his cheeks his fingers come back clean.

 _Tears_ , he realises. He is crying.

 He sobs experimentally and something inside him shudders unpleasantly. Unnerved, he tries to stop himself but it’s like the floodgates have opened and he can’t do anything but weather the cries that wrack through him. He screams, wordless, at the sky above, the sound so loud he half convinces himself his soul is leaving with it. He gasps. Screams again. Sobs and slams his hands into the ground, tearing apart chunks of grass, uncaring that blades of green catch in the metal of his left hand.

How could she?

_How could she?_

He _trusted_ her. Was so surprised and pleased when she’d stayed. Thought maybe for once he could let his guard down. Let himself _feel_. Let himself hope that things might become less awful- less lonely. _What a fucking joke_ , the voice sneers and all he can think of is how desolate he is, once again.  He keens, arms curling over his head and blocking the sky from view.

Soulmates.

They were _soulmates_.

And she was never even going to tell him.

 _I don’t think he’d want me anymore_ , she’d said.

 _It’s not your fault_ , she told him, her face unreadable.

 _Maybe you’ll find her again_ , she’d murmured, encouraging smile not quite reaching her eyes.

He curls in on himself, flesh hand digging into the skin stretched taught over his ribs. The entire time they’d been together, had she only ever spoken in lies and hidden truths? Was she so intent to keep it a secret from him? She never wanted him, he realises. Never- not even when he was _Him_ ; whole, with two arms and no broken mind that left him screaming silently in the early hours of the morning. The thought hurts more than he thought it might and he collapses onto his side, curling into as small a space as possible, as though somehow it can keep him intact. Fragments of glass cut his skin, ineffectual flashes of pain that is swamped by the agony in his chest.

Hurts. Everything hurts and he is so _tired_. And alone, once again.

He breathes out shakily, breath wet, and squeezes his eyes shut. Lets himself wallow in his misery, half hoping that the earth would open its jaws and swallow him whole.

 

 

In the distance, a crow caws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know that a lot of people were unhappy with Bucky leaving Darcy (and honestly I don't blame you for feeling that), and this chapter isn't really intended to provide you with a reason for this, hence why I've not even touched upon his reasons for leaving her; I'd rather keep it open ended, and let you fill in the gaps :3 Sorrynotsorry.
> 
>  
> 
> Expect the next chapter up in the next couple of days ^.^


	20. The Tower

After she’s finished with Darcy’s hands, Natasha leads Darcy out of the house and across the sloped yard towards the quinjet. Darcy avoids looking at the gnarled cottonwood tree that they pass, trying hard not to think about what happened there. It feels like eons ago now, when life made sense and she didn’t feel as though her very soul had been shredded by the past that lay between her and James. She wonders what he’s doing now- where he’s going- but the thought of him hurts too much and she quickly changes tack, putting her focus on what’s in front of her.

Clint is waiting for them in the quinjet. He stands in the shadows of the cargo hold, face expressionless behind his ridiculous purple tinted glasses as they approach. Darcy is almost grateful for it; part of her just wants to forget the last week. Act like nothing ever happened.

“Lewis,” he says around the lollipop in his mouth. He holds out another- bright red, Darcy’s favourite- and she takes it gratefully- albeit clumsily, what with her bandaged hands. Natasha’s hand tightens almost imperceptibly around her elbow. “Good to see you.”

 “Barton,” she replies with a grin that can’t quite reach her eyes. “Still alive and kicking.”

“Mhmm,” he says noncommittally. “Despite Nat’s best efforts.”

“You’re like a cockroach,” she drawls. “Hard to kill.”

He cackles and retreats further into the quinjet. “Thank God for that.” Darcy follows him inside with trepidation; she’s never been in the jet before- it’s somehow exactly what she imagined and nothing alike all at once. She finds it a little intimidating, really, and doesn’t know if she likes the thought of the Avengers spending such an effort to find her. They were looking for James too, she reasons, and sits down where Natasha tells her to, letting the older woman strap her in when her hands prove too cumbersome.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, eyes downcast, and Natasha sighs heavily.

“Darcy,” she says, and the tone of her voice prompts Darcy to look up. “Things will be okay- they’ll get better.”

Darcy sighs heavily, and rolls her head to look at Natasha when she takes the seat beside her. “I know,” she murmurs, and huffs a bitter laugh. “I just… why can’t it be better _now_? I’m so tired of shit hitting the fan.”

Natasha holds out her hand and Darcy takes it, closing her eyes as the heavy footfalls of Sam and Steve sound through the jet. “I missed you,” she confesses lowly as they walk past to join Clint in the front of the plane. Darcy opens her eyes in surprise; the look in Natasha’s eyes is soft and earnest. Darcy squeezes her hand in comfort. “When Steve said you were gone I was half-beside myself. All I could think of was-” she cuts herself off, clearing her throat. Darcy’s grateful; she doesn’t think she has the energy to talk about her runaway soulmate anymore. “I just want you to be safe, птичка.”

Darcy smiles at her, wondering how she ever managed to snag a woman like Natasha as one of her closest friends. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Natasha shakes her head, visibly biting her tongue. “You did what you needed to do to keep yourself safe and Darcy? I am so, _so proud of you_.”

Darcy gapes at her, feeling close to tears all over again. “Oh.”

The assassin squeezes her hand tightly. “You stayed safe- _hell_ , you even managed to leave us that note. That’s more than many people in your situation would have managed. But it’s time for you to go home; you’ve done your part- Tony thinks there’s only a few bases left in the States, and a good part of that is thanks to you.”

Darcy bites at the inside of her cheek. _Home_. She hasn’t seen the Tower in weeks- hasn’t seen Jane or Thor for about as long and the thought of falling asleep on her own bed, without scratchy sheets and bedbugs to worry about is so sweet it feels almost obscene. “I think I need a pay raise,” she jokes and Natasha huffs a laugh.

“Well bring that up with Pepper, not me,” she smirks, and lets go of Darcy’s hand to retrieve something from inside her jacket. Darcy sucks in a surprised breath.

“My phone!”

“Mm,” Natasha hums, smiling at her. “Rogers found it in the motel after-” she coughs and offers Darcy an apologetic smile, “Well. I’ve kept it charged- it’s unharmed.”

Darcy takes it from her, the weight familiar in her hands and she runs a nail over the long scratch down the left side of the screen. She has no idea how it got there; Tony had assured her the screen was ‘scratchproof’.

“Thank-you,” she murmurs, and laughs softly when she touches the side and the screen turns on. Her and Jane are laughing, party hats perched precariously on their heads. She’d taken the photo on her last birthday (a surprise party, organised by Jane and Thor, bless their souls) and there is a smear of dark red lipstick on Jane’s cheek from where Darcy had kissed her in thanks for organising the party.

She misses home, she realises. More than she’d initially thought, and Darcy watches through cloudy vision as notifications begin popping up on the screen, the phone vibrating softly in her hand. “It’ll be good to see Jane again.”

Natasha rests her hand on Darcy’s shoulder, squeezing softly as the rear door to the quinjet closes, the sound surprisingly quiet. “Thor’s still offworld,” she informs her and Darcy nods mutely, tapping in the code to unlock her phone. “For the best really; I think he’d have torn Barnes apart once he found you.”

Darcy bites her lip and changes the topic quickly. “How are Tony and Bruce?”

Natasha shrugs, leaning back into her seat and shifting as she tries to get comfortable. “They’re okay. Bruce has been absorbed in some new project of his- not entirely sure what it is.” A lie, Darcy’s certain; Natasha always makes sure to know what other’s are up to- it’s her business. “According to Pepper, Tony’s not slept for about three days now. He’s been absorbed with finding the rest of the Hydra bases- when he’s not been scouring through all the information Jarvis could scrounge up about your whereabouts. Barnes really led us on a bit of a wild goose chase for a time there.”

Darcy winces. She wonders if Pepper told Natasha about their conversation last night (and _God_ but doesn’t that feel like an age ago now). Natasha shoots her a look as though reading her mind. “Pepper told me about your late night call, by the way.”

Darcy offers her a wan smile, and beneath her feet she feels the jet begin to rise, engines bursting into life. “Uh- sorry?”

The glint in the older woman’s eyes is an odd mix of amused and disapproving.  “It was very sneaky, choosing to call her. Honestly I’m more impressed than anything else. And bringing in the X-Men?” she nudges Darcy’s knee, corners of her lips curled up in a smile. “Clever. Glad you got those kids out… though if you two _did_ want to stay off the radar, blowing up that warehouse really wasn’t in your best interest. We were already on our way here when Barnes called us.”

Darcy presses her lips together unhappily. “You didn’t see, Nat… the things they did to those kids.” Her hand tightens around her phone. “They weren’t their first subjects. And they- they were just _kids_.”

Natasha’s expression hardens and she glances away. Darcy wonders if she’s thinking of little girls trapped in rooms with red doors, and she half regrets talking about it at all. But Natasha only sighs heavily, staring down at her hands. “You did the right thing. None of us are really going to argue with that decision, птичка.” She looks up, jaw clenching tight for a moment. “Burning those fuckers to the ground is the only way. Salt and burn everything they ever touched so they can never grow back.”

Darcy breathes out slowly, and leans back into her seat, phone clasped loosely in her hands. For whatever reason, she can’t find the interest nor desire to actually use it. “You’re starting to sound like Steve.”

“Tch,” Natasha tuts crossly, looking up to glare at the man in question. Darcy wonders at the sudden animosity, and her heart aches at the thought of the two of them being on shaky ground.

“Are you ever going to forgive him?” she asks lowly, aware of Steve’s enhanced hearing but hoping the sound of the engines is strong enough to blur their conversation. She watches his profile warily, but he makes no sign of hearing them.

“Yes,” Natasha sighs heavily, tilting her head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Just… give me time. I’m still furious at him for being sloppy enough to let Barnes kidnap you.”

Darcy says nothing. She’s always thought of Natasha as a rational and level headed woman, and she’s never seen her hold a grudge like this before. It’s disconcerting but not exactly unexpected; it’s not as though the woman is made of stone. She knows there’s nothing she can say to make Natasha forgive him quicker and sometimes it’s safer to just let the storm blow over and repair the damage when it’s done.

Steve glances their way, something close to longing on his face and Darcy smiles at him comfortingly. She can’t imagine he’s in many people’s good books right now, and this whole thing with James must have been hard for him. He looks like he wants to come and join them but Natasha’s glare stops him and he quickly turns back around.

“He’s a good man- his heart was in the right place,” she murmurs, staring at the back of his head. She wonders if he can feel the weight of their gazes.

“Of course he is,” Natasha scoffs, and she crosses her arms and legs, obviously uncaring of how defensive it comes across as. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be angry at him.”

Darcy huffs a mirthless laugh and closes her eyes, resting her head against the hard padding of the seat. Her eyes feel like they’re burning beneath her closed eyelids. “How long until we get back to New York?”

A weighted pause. “About an hour… you should sleep, if you can.” Darcy smiles blandly, and Natasha gently takes her cell out of her grip before she can drop it.

“I think I’ll try,” she says around a yawn and Natasha chuckles. “Wake me when we get close?”

“Of course,” Natasha drawls and Darcy smiles at her before pulling on her hard won and cultivated skill of falling asleep wherever the hell she can.

 

* * *

 

“Darcy. _Darcy._ ”

She starts, eyes snapping open in surprise. “Whu?”

Steve is sitting beside her, smiling at her softly. “Hey.”

Darcy smiles at him broadly, though she feels kind of loopy from her half-nap. In spite of everything she’s happy to talk to him again. “Good to see you, Steve.” He takes her proffered hand, his monster hand dwarfing her own, bandages and all. “Was wondering if I’d ever get to talk to you.”

Steve glances behind himself and spies Natasha leaning over Clint’s pilot seat, laughing softly at something he’s saying. Sam, she notices, is dozing in one of the seats a little down from them, though she’s sure there’s some debate as to whether he’s truly asleep. “I figured I’d keep off her toes,” he tells her. He glances away again, and Darcy watches the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Darcy I… I wanted to apologise- for everything that happened. I got complacent and you were the one who suffered for it.”

Darcy squeezes his hand a little tighter, ignoring the throb of pain at the movement. “Pretty sure James had a pretty big part to play in that,” she murmurs and Steve breathes out slowly. He looks down at her bandaged hand sadly.

“You’ve ended up hurt again,” he breathes, voice close to cracking at the end and her chest tightens at the sound. “I got lazy and I am so, _so_ sorry, Darcy. You should never have had to go through any of this and I-”

“Steve,” she interrupts him and he stops. She can’t get over how teary he sounds and she can’t help but tug him forwards into a slightly awkward hug. He doesn’t cry, but he does clutch at her tightly. “It’s okay,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders as far as she can from the odd angle. “I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault, Steve.”

“I thought I’d lost you for good,” he breathes into her shoulder and she pats his shoulder. “I didn’t- I thought of all the ways he could have hurt you and I- I so sorry Darce. _So sorry_.”

“It’s okay,” she breathes, closing her eyes as her heart constricts. “We’re good- you’re good. He was a gentleman the whole time. Kept me safe.”

Steve pulls away, wiping not-so-discreetly at his eyes. “I’m glad,” he says shakily. Darcy smiles at him. “Glad you’re okay- I don’t know what we would have done if…” he trails off and out of the corner of her eye she spies Sam shifting in his seat. Definitely not asleep.

“But it didn’t,” she reassures him. “I’m okay-” in a sense, “and so’s James. And maybe it- uh- maybe things ended sour between us, but he’ll be okay. He’s a survivor.”

Steve smiles, his eyes sad. “I guess that’s the best anyone can hope for.”

“He was doing really well,” she tells him, and Steve tilts his head in interest. Somehow it doesn’t hurt as much as she’d think it would to talk about him to Steve. “For a guy a month and a half out of Hydra’s clutches, he’s doing really well.” Ignoring, of course, the likely repercussions of today’s revelations. “Walking, talking, driving.” She bites back a smile. “He wouldn’t let me drive though.”

“See he’s still got sense in that head of his then,” Steve drawls and Darcy laughs. It almost feels like the old times again, but for the throbbing of her hands and the empty feeling in her chest that won’t go away.

“I am a fabulous driver, thank-you very much.”

“It’s true,” Natasha calls out from the front and Darcy shoots a smug grin in her direction. “Darcy is a very good driver.”

“You only say that because you drive like a lunatic too,” Sam grumbles, sitting up properly in his seat. Steve sends him a happy smile, so warm and pure that it almost hurts to watch.

Natasha glances back at the three of them, corners of her lips twitching despite herself. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I just like watching you squirm?”

Sam opens his mouth. Closes it. Grimaces.

Clint cackles. “It’s true- I’ve seen her park in places most wouldn’t even dare to try. You remember that one place in Italy?”

“How could I forget,” sighs Natasha, straightening from her casual lean against the pilot seat. “That little old lady used to give me cannoli every time I squeezed the car in there.”

“ _Cannoli?_ ” Clint squawks. “And you didn’t _share_?”

“Why should I?” Natasha’s smirk is a sight to behold. “I was the one who got the park, not you.” She walks away, passing Darcy and Steve, the smile fading as she does so. “We’ll be landing in a couple of minutes,” she warns them, gaze passing straight over Steve as though he isn’t even there.

Steve blows out a deep breath, gaze trailing after her as she works on something at the back of the plane. “She’s gonna be mad at me for a while, isn’t she?”

“Probably,” Darcy says. “I suggest many bottles of vodka.”

He stares at her in confusion and Darcy is reminded of a golden retriever wondering where its toy went. “But I can’t get drunk?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s for Nat, you berk.” He flushes with embarrassed realisation and Darcy snickers at him. “Maybe get her a few new knives too.”

Steve nods slowly. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“Mm. And chances are she won’t even try to use them on you.”

“Comforting,” he says dryly and Darcy grins. They fall into a companionable silence as Clint manoeuvres them down onto the Tower’s landing pad.

“By the by…” she asks suddenly, the persistent thrum of the engines slowly winding down. “I was wondering… did James always chew on mints or is it a new development?”

Her question startles a laugh out of him, which quickly devolves into a laughing fit. Darcy watches, puzzled, as Steve turns red in the face from mirth. Sam watches on, looking alarmed. “I didn’t think the question was _that_ funny,” Darcy remarks.

“Sorry, sorry,” Steve gasps getting his mirth under control, and he wipes away an errant tear. “It’s just- _yeah_ \- he was always like that. I used to give him such _hell_ for it. Couldn’t just savour a candy- he’d go through a bag in a few minutes if you let him.”

Darcy huffs a laugh as she awkwardly manages to unbuckle herself from the seat. She sighs with relief when she manages it without help. “Guess some things don’t change.”

“No,” he agrees, looking far more at peace than he had when he’d woken her up. “Guess not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned we're on the homeward stretch? I feel like I need to mention this again. Because we're on the homeward stretch. So keen.
> 
> Expect the lovely Jane in the next chapter!


	21. The Scientist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy enjoys some downtime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little light-heartedness before we delve back into the grit.

Darcy watches the doors come down with something akin to dread settling in her gut.

It’s stupid, she knows. It’s not like anyone’s going to raise their finger and call her a traitor. In fact, as far as she can tell her friends are just grateful to have her back. Even Steve- who she was worried might blame her for what happened- has been kind and understanding and just so _Steve_ about it all that Darcy scarcely knows what she was worried about in the first place. But the thought of having to explain herself- of having to retell the story of her and James… it turns her stomach just thinking about it.

The doors hit the ground with a resounding _thud_ and there is a long moment of silence. Then-

“ _Darcy!_ ”

The sound of heavy feet running across concrete and up the gangway and suddenly Darcy’s arms are full of one Jane Foster, skinny arms wrapping tightly around her waist.

“Janey,” she laughs, recovering from her surprise. She returns the embrace and squeezes her tightly, burying her face in the scientist’s hair, breathing in her familiar scent.

“God- it’s so good to have you back,” Jane breathes, and if anything she holds Darcy tighter. Darcy laughs wetly.

“It’s good to be back.”

Jane pulls away and Darcy takes her in. She looks good- the circles beneath her eyes lighter than she remembers- and her face seems to have filled out a little more, as though she’s been eating properly.

“Aw,” she smirks, “you just miss me for my filing skills.”

Jane grins. “It’s true. The new intern isn’t nearly as competent as you. I’ve missed your cupcakes too.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “You realise they’re only ever packet mix, right?”

She shrugs. “Packet mix cupcakes are still more cupcakes than have been happening without you around.”

Darcy laughs again and shakes her head in disbelief. “That’s just because you’re lazy.”

Jane makes an insulted noise. “Excuse you- I am a Nobel Prize nominee! Lazy I am not!”

Darcy smirks but concedes her point. “You’re right. You look good Janey,” she touches the end of her hair, haphazardly braided down the side of her face.

Jane preens. “Thank-you. I’ve been taking a leaf out of your book.”

“What? Three meals a day and eight hours sleep?”

“Mhmm- or at least, I’m getting there. I even cut back on caffeine. I’m a changed woman.”

Darcy gapes. “Janey _No._ ”

Jane smirks, looking pleased with herself. “Janey _yes_. I’ve been very good so far.”

Darcy laughs. “I can see that. Congrats; I’m really proud of you.”

Excitement crosses Jane’s face. “That’s not the only thing. I-” her face darkens and she scowls at something behind Darcy. “Rogers.”

Darcy glances back and just manages to catch Steve swallowing nervously. “Doctor Foster,” he says cautiously. Jane scowls at him fiercely and Steve… well she wouldn’t go so far as to say he looks _scared_ of her, but he certainly seems apprehensive, jaw clenching and unclenching as Jane’s ire appears to only grow more pronounced.

“Why don’t we go inside,” she offers, trying to disarm the situation. The raw anger on Jane’s face eases slightly. “It’s a bit cold up here.”

“That’s a great idea,” Jane smiles approvingly, and she grabs Darcy’s hand, dragging her inside. “You must be exhausted- c’mon, I’ll take you back to your apartment.”

Darcy rolls her eyes at the back of Jane’s head and looks back to mouth an ‘I’m sorry’ at Steve and Sam as the scientist tugs on her arm impatiently. Steve shrugs back helplessly and the automatic doors close behind them, blurring his face behind the glazed glass. Jane’s shoes tap loudly on the floor- she’s always had a surprisingly heavy tread for such a tiny woman, and her familiar stomping makes Darcy smile fondly. It’s fucking good to be home.

Darcy studies her friend carefully in the elevator. Jane seems to be vibrating with excitement, hands fidgeting with the hem of her plaid shirt; they may live in high-tech luxury these days, but Jane hasn’t changed her wardrobe in at least three years.

“So, spit it out,” she says, breaking the silence and Jane starts, glancing at her.

“What?”

Darcy gives her look of fond exasperation. “You’ve got news, haven’t you? Is it about Thor?”

Jane bites her lip, but she can’t hold back the smile curling at her mouth, as though laughing at some inner joke. The elevator door chimes open and she leads Darcy out and across the corridor, almost slamming her hand and on the biometric scanner and she tugs her inside the apartment.

“C’mon Jane,” Darcy whines as they hurry through the corridor and into the living area. “You’re killing me here! What’s the goss?”

Jane rounds on her in the middle of the living room, eyes sparkling with excitement. “I’m pregnant.” She blurts out.

Darcy’s mouth falls open in shock.

“You- _what?_ ” she breathes. “How long?”

“Eleven weeks!” Jane says, grinning at her like a loon. She flushes. “I- uh- found out the week before last. When I realised-” she coughs, “well.”

She laughs despite herself. Trust Jane to take almost three months to realise she’d missed her period. “Is it a- a surprise?”

Jane nods emphatically, eyes wide. “Birth control isn’t what it’s cut out to be, apparently.”

“But you’re happy?”

Jane nods so hard Darcy half thinks her head might fall off. “I mean, it’s a shock, sure. But Thor is it for me. I _want_ this baby. Of course,” her face darkens, “it’d be nice if he could turn up as some point _before_ the baby comes along.” Her voice grows louder and she stares up at the ceiling. “You hear that Heimdall? You tell Thor to get his ass back on Earth quick smart!”

Darcy laughs and pulls Jane into a fierce hug, squeezing tight. She smells like oatmeal and coffee. “That’s just- wow.”

“Just wow?” Jane ask, voice muffled by Darcy’s hair. “I thinking carrying a demigod deserves more than just a ‘wow’.”

“Alright then, how about ‘holy fuck’? You’re gonna have to be a proper adult now. No more all-nighters.”

 “Ugh,” Jane grimaces and she rolls her eyes. “Don’t remind me. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been trying to get to bed on time? And decaf is _literally killing me_.”

Darcy tilts her head, studying her carefully. “You’re serious about this aren’t you?”

“Like a heart attack.” Darcy grimaces and Jane rolls her eyes. “Okay, maybe that was the wrong analogy to use, but you get the idea. I never thought I’d be that kind of person, but Darcy- I’m just _really_ happy, you know? And Thor isn’t here, but part of me doesn’t even care.” She reaches out and takes Darcy’s hands again, rubbing her thumbs across the bandages. “I missed you, though. I guess I would have liked to have you here with me when I found out. Being alone… it’s been hard.”

Darcy bites the inside of her cheek, eyes prickling. “Does anyone else know?”

Jane shakes her head. “Besides my doctor, you’re the first.”

Darcy closes her eyes and she clenches her jaw. She’s touched- to be the first to know- for Jane to be so excited about telling her- it speaks of their friendship and Darcy is reminded all over again how much she loves this woman and _fuck_ , but she’s missed her. “Wow,” she says wetly, and Jane makes a soft, displeased sound.

“Oh Darce,” she murmurs, and sits her down on the couch. “Sorry- Natasha told me about- you-know-who. I got carried away.”

“No, no,” she waves off her apology and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m just- _really_ happy for you. This is amazing.”

Jane smiles despite the sudden drop in mood. “I know Thor isn’t here, but I know he’d agree with me, and Darcy, I was hoping you’d agree to be the kid’s godmother.”

Darcy laughs, and about halfway through realises she’s crying too. “Oh wow,” she laughs/sobs and Jane wraps her into another tight huh. Darcy clings onto her shirt tightly and buries her face in the crook of Jane’s shoulder. “ _Wow._ Yes. Of course. _Of course._ ”

“Are you still happy?” she asks, sounding kind of doubtful. “Because there’s a bit more crying than I’d expected.”

Darcy laughs and sniffs deeply. Jane tuts and pulls her into her arms, cuddling with her on the expansive sofa. “I’m okay,” she burbles, and wipes her nose with the hem of her sleeve. “It’s just been a- a really _horrible_ day.” Jane sighs, wrapping her arms around Darcy’s torso and she closes her eyes, just taking a moment to appreciate the warmth of her along her back.

“You don’t need to talk about it right now Darcy,” Jane hums, and Darcy huffs a bitter laugh. “Not today; let it sink in a while, yeah? Just know I’m here, when you want to talk.”

“Thanks.” She sniffs again and rubs at her eyes. The bandages are slightly scratchy against her irritated skin. “I’m sick of talking. Honestly I just want to sleep for the next _month_.”

“Then sleep,” Jane says. Darcy shifts, breathing out slowly and lets herself relax, for the first time in days. She can scarcely believe how short a time it’s been since James stole her out of the motel. It feels like a lifetime.

“What are you going to do if Thor doesn’t come back?” Darcy asks eventually, her voice breaking the silence. Jane’s arms tighten around her chest. It not an unfair question; Thor’s absences are frequent and irregular in length- there’s no telling how long he could be away for. Darcy knows that for all Jane’s independence and absorption in her work, his lack or presence drains her. And even if Heimdall does manage to pass on the babydaddy message, there’s no guarantee Thor will even be _able_ to return post haste.

“Then I’ll be mad,” she says quietly, “but not at the baby. And hey,” she pokes at Darcy’s ribs and she squawks in protest, “at least I’ll have you. And Nat, and Pepper, and Clint and Bruce and- and I really _hate_ that I have to say this, but even Tony and Steve… It’s not like I’m alone- and I know that. I know you’ll all have my back. _Especially_ when Thor gets back and I kick his goddamn ass.”

Darcy laughs throatily, her whole body shaking with mirth. “I’ll bring my taser.”

“Thanks- though I doubt it’ll do much now that he’s god-ified again.”

Darcy makes a noncommittal sound. “I don’t know; Tony souped it up before I left. I wanted to try it out on him but he weaselled out; said his heart couldn’t take it.”

“Shame,” Jane hums, voice teasing, “I would have liked to have watch him twitching; he knows how to get on your nerves, doesn’t he?”

“He does,” she laughs, “but his heart’s in the right place.”

Her friend snickers, motioning around them with her hand. “I know- bless his cotton socks.”

“Oh my God,” Darcy closes her eyes, laughing again. “Cotton socks?”

“You’re right,” Jane muses, “Cotton’s probably too plebeian for him.”

She snorts. “Silk stockings.”

Jane makes a sound of disgust and lightly slaps Darcy’s ribs. “That is a horrible mental image!”

“Tony in stocking and a garter belt,” she carries on, merciless and Jane groans and hits her again. “That corset you like to think I don’t know about. And Jane- _Jane_ \- _all that leg hair_.”

“Please stop.”

“Okay, how about _Thor_ , in stockings and a garter belt?”

Silence.

Darcy’s eyes widen and she twists around to stare at her best friend. “Janey you _kinky_ _fucker_!”

Jane flushes a deep red. “It wasn’t my idea!”

Darcy laughs, straight from her gut. “Oh my God.”

“Thor’s hundreds of years old!” she says defensively. If anything Darcy just laughs harder. “He doesn’t care about ‘primitive Midgardian gender norms’! He says the stockings feel nice- Darcy stop laughing!”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, and wipes at her eyes. She giggles, helpless. “It’s just- oh my Lord who’d have thought.”

“I will admit it surprised me,” Jane confesses, voice conspiratorial, “but I… I kinda liked it?” The sheer surprise in her revelation sends Darcy into another peal of laughter.

“He’s just- he _ekes_ alpha male, you know?”

“I know,” Jane says dreamily, “It’s awesome.” Darcy rolls her eyes, not entirely certain what she’s calling the awesome part (of course, maybe it’s both) and settles back against her. Jane runs a hand through her hair and she closes her eyes, the casual intimacy like a soothing balm over the festering sores of the past few days. “It’s good to have you back,” she says again. Darcy hums contentedly.

“It’s great to be back. I missed sofas.” Jane pokes her in the ribs and she smiles lazily. “And you too, I guess… thanks for asking me to be your godmother.”

Jane snorts softly. The hair-stroking blessedly doesn’t stop. “You’re going to be the _baby’s_ godmother, not mine.”

“Mmph. Close enough.”

“Ha,” the older woman murmurs. “Sleep, Darcy.”

“What about you?”

“Jarvis can play me some ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ episodes.”

She bites her lip in amusement. “Still don’t get why you like to watch that show.”

“The dresses are nice,” Jane protests. Darcy makes a doubtful sound. “Well, mostly.”

“Well I’m gon’ sleep,” Darcy slurs. She can’t even find the strength to open her eyes anymore. “Wake me when your legs go numb.”

“I’ll probably need to pee before that happens,” the scientist confesses. Darcy makes a wordless sound of commiseration. “Now shut up and go to sleep so I can watch my trashy shows in peace.”

“Sleeping.”

“… I love you, Darcy.”

She swallows thickly, acutely aware of how just this morning she’d have killed to hear those words come from somebody else. “Love you too, Janey.”

Darcy falls asleep to the gentle rhythm of Jane’s breathing and the quiet shrieks of brides to be on their search for the perfect dress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are interested, I just started a new fic! It's based on a prompt that UsedKarma posted on Tumblr about a week ago that I knew just HAD to exist. It's called 'Kiss Kiss Fall in Love' (yes it is named after the anime, no it is not an Ouran High School Host Club AU). It's a far cry from the angst of these past few chapters, and should stay to the humour side of things, though we'll see how well that goes because I honestly don't think of myself as a funny writer. ^.^'


	22. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished this chapter!!!! 
> 
> This chapter takes place over about two and a half months.

 

Steve and Sam don’t stay long. Steve- undoubtedly still feeling the heat of his teammate’s anger- tells her he feels it best he and the Tower have some ‘time apart’.

(“Besides,” he tells her with a sad smile, “there’s still plenty of Hydra bases around to take out.”)

Darcy lets them leave reluctantly; she knows most of the people in the Tower blame Steve and Sam for her kidnapping, but all she cares about is they they’re her friends and they’re not comfortable here. The thought hurts, and she makes no secret of her disapproval of their sudden pariah status to the others.

Still, they seem determined to leave, pariahs or not. Darcy’s not especially surprised; Steve’s never been one for sitting around when there’s work to be done, and Sam seems determined to keep his soulmate alive, no matter what. It’s no wonder they only stay in the Tower for a little over a weeks, and she doesn’t doubt for a second that Steve’s likely to start searching for James in earnest too.

Not that he’s said anything to her, but she can see it in the guilty twist to his goodbye smile, like he thinks she wouldn’t want him to find her soulmate.

(“Find him,” she murmurs into their final hug. “Keep him safe.” Steve makes a surprised sound and hugs her a little harder.)

Clint flies them out on the quinjet; he’s taking them back to the car they’d abandoned when James called them to pick her up; and Darcy stays out on the balcony until she can’t see the jet anymore. She misses them already.

Jane comes back outside and stands beside her quietly. Her hands fiddle with the hem of her shirt and Darcy sends her a wan smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She grimaces as the wind blows hair into her mouth and struggles to fix it back behind her ears. “I feel kind of bad, now.”

Darcy sends her an unimpressed glare and Jane has the grace to look embarrassed. “Okay, a lot bad.”

“They only ever tried to do their best, Janey. It wasn’t their fault,” Darcy sighs, and turns about face, wandering back into the common area before they freeze. Jane stumbles along beside her, worrying at her hands anxiously.

“I was just really mad, okay? And scared. I thought-”

She breathes out slowly. Takes Jane’s hand in hers. Her fingers are cold. “I’m not saying you’re not justified in feeling that way,” she reasons and Jane looks a little better. Darcy squeezes lightly and Jane returns the gesture without hesitation. “But Steve and Sam are good men; Steve’s our _friend_ \- Sam would have been too if he’d had the chance. They didn’t deserve the pariah treatment.”

Jane looks away, cheeks turning pink. “Fine.”

Darcy squeezes her hand again. “You can apologise tomorrow when I call them.”

Jane’s head whips around, her mouth falling open in shock. “ _But-_ ”

“Nu-uh. I wasn’t the one who was the asshole here.”

“But I’m _pregnant,_ Darcy!”

She rolls her eyes at Jane’s melodramatics. Anyone would think she was asking to take her out base jumping. “Hormones or not, you’ve still got a duty to say sorry. And anyway,” she glances down at the ground and bites the inside of her cheek, a wave of sadness suddenly washing over her, “you don’t want to say goodbye to a friend when you’re angry. Especially not friends with jobs like Steve’s.”

Jane is quiet for a long time, staring at Darcy with sad eyes. She tries to let go of her hand and keep walking but Jane holds on tight, tugging Darcy back with her surprisingly strong grip. “You’re right,” she says quietly. “I’ll apologise to him tomorrow. I promise.”

Darcy smiles at her in relief. “Thank-you.”

Jane pulls her into a hug and Darcy clutches at her tightly. It’s been a week since she returned to the Tower but sometimes she still feels touch-starved. Fortunately, Jane’s been on the clingy side ever since she got back (Darcy’s not sure if it’s the hormones, or because she missed her, but she’s not complaining either way). She hums against Jane’s hair and grins. They’re the only ones in the Tower today- Tony and Bruce were called off to some scientist convention, and Natasha and Clint are… well, who even knows where they are. The important this is that they’re Not Here.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking B1?” she asks. Jane snorts.

“Really Darcy?”

“ _Jane_ ,” she whines, and pokes her in the side. Jane yelps and tries to dodge away but Darcy holds her fast. “Do the thing! Go on- do it- _please!_ ”

“Oh my God,” she groans. “You are the absolute worst.”

“Do the thing!”

“Ugh- _fine-_ I think I am, B2,” she sighs heavily, Darcy cheers and dances about the room with her until Jane slaps her away laughingly.

“It’s science time!” she cries, and Jane laughs again despite herself.

“The worst,” she reiterates. Darcy snickers.

“Better get used to it, ‘cause with a baby on the way don’t think for a second that I’m not gonna play that shit on repeat. Bananas in Pyjamas are a classic.”

Jane pulls a face. “Oh God.”

“Still glad to have me back, Jane-the-brain?” Darcy coos. Jane rolls her eyes.

“I’m starting to regret it.”

“D’awww, you love me!”

She pokes Darcy in the side and she giggles, dodging out of the way of her insistent fingers. “You are incorrigible.”

“Mhm.”

Jane gets a familiar coy look on her face. The one that tells Darcy she’s in for a good time. “So… what kind of science were we thinking of?”

Darcy grins.

 

* * *

 

It’s dark.

Darcy can barely see what’s in front of her, but she feels the unforgiving hardness of the surface she’s sleeping on and the comforting weight of a blanket resting over her. Her breath mists in front of her, the cold so pure it feels as though it’s cleansing her insides, purifying her of all past sins. She lies on her side and something metal digs into her hip, still cold despite her body heat. She shivers.

And yet, despite the cold, there is a line of warmth along her back. A body presses up against her; someone warm and alive. She can hear their breathing- almost silent, barely there, like an echo of hers. She thinks of James, trapped in the cold, and the dark, frozen like a piece of meat, waiting to be useful. Did he ever feel this way about it? She doubts it.

She wonders who it is.

Darcy seems to lie there for an age, listening to the way their breathing copies hers.  Do they know she’s there? Do they find comfort in her presence as much as she finds comfort in theirs? What would they do were she to twist- turn around and wrap herself around them?.

The body sighs.

“I can hear you thinking,” James mumbles, voice low. Darcy stiffens. Twists her head, trying to turn to look at him, and he rolls over, left arm resting heavily over her waist. “You should sleep.”

Darcy trembles.

“James?”

“Darcy,” he says lowly. The slight rasp of his voice is _so familiar_. He presses a soft kiss to her forehead as she rolls over to look at him, and the gesture steals the breath straight from her chest. “Darcy,” he says again, and she clutches at him. Tries to touch as much of him as she can, hands running down his chest and side as though trying to memorise the feel of him.

“James,” she breathes. “What are you doing here? I thought-” she breaks off, swallowing thickly. She hadn’t thought she’d feel his absence so keenly- they’d been together a matter of days, but somehow it feels like it’s been years.

“I don’t know,” he confesses. Darcy clenches her jaw, the fallout of James’ revelation hitting her like a freight train.

“I’m so sorry, James. I-”

He cuts her off with a sweet kiss and Darcy bites back a sob of distress.

“You must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he murmurs and Darcy sobs a little harder.

“Then why did you leave?”

He stays silent and Darcy feels as though the air in her chest as disappeared. She chokes back tears and closes her eyes. “You shouldn’t be here,” she tells him, and Darcy turns around, ignoring the weight of his arm on her waist or the warmth of him against her back. “I’m sorry. You should go.”

“I don’t know if I can, Darcy,” he says softly, but he rolls away from her all the same. The warm comfort of before is gone.

The air turns cold.

 

* * *

 

Darcy wakes with dry cheeks and a tightness in her throat. She breathes in deeply, unsure of what she’d dreamt of. Whatever it had been, it’s got her emotions all scrambled. She feels sad- lonely. Darcy breathes out slowly, sprawling across her bed beneath the covers. She’s warm, yet ill-at-ease and the feeling is jarring. She feels like a kid, waking from a nightmare back when she was little.

“Jarvis, what’s the time?”

“It is 0551 hours, Miss Lewis. Would you like me to reduce the window opacity for you?”

She sighs and peers through the darkness at the floor-to-ceiling windows she both loves and hates. For the most part, she likes to keep the opacity on full- the openness of the  windows makes her feel exposed and unsafe- but she knows that the sun will be rising soon, and Darcy doubts she’ll be able to get back to sleep- not with this weird feeling in her chest like she wants to cry.

“Alright,” she croaks, and Jarvis lets the opacity fade gradually. She breathes out slowly as the barest traces of the Manhattan skyline come into view. From her vantage point on the bed, she can’t see much else but the odd darkened shape of a building as tall as the Avengers Tower, and the sky. Darcy watches impassively as the sky; cloudless and clear- brightens- deep navy to washed and faded yellow to a warm orange. She can’t see the morning sun from her apartment, but watching the colours shift is peaceful, and she finds herself in a sort of zen-like state the longer she lies there, content, her mind clear and empty, her room silent but for the sound of her breathing and the faintest hum of the air-conditioning, working to regulate the temperature in the Tower.

By the time Darcy manages to rouse herself from her torpor and gets around to putting clothes on for the day, the sky is a tranquil, even blue, with only the faintest trace of yellow smog on the horizon.

 

* * *

 

“Darcy.”

“I’m so sorry, James! I wanted to tell you-”

“It’s okay,” he interrupts her. His face is so sad that the words freeze up in her throat. James runs a reverential hand down the side of her face, the touch of her fingers so light she can barely feel them. His thumb pauses on her lower lip and she breathes in shakily.

“I wish-”

“Don’t,” a pained look crosses his face. “Please- just don’t.”

Darcy blanches and pulls away. “Oh,” she rasps. She swallows. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

James makes a soft sound, fingers brushing over her shoulder, but Darcy is already running away.

 

* * *

 

Thor returns three days after Steve and Sam leave. The Tower seems to tremble with anticipation as the skies turn grey, thunder rippling across the darkened sky. Darcy and Jane turn to the window of the common area in surprise- ten minutes ago the sky had been empty.

“Jane,” Darcy breathes, and her friend pats her arm excitedly, just as a figure crashes onto the helipad in an explosion of lightning and power that crackles across their skin like static.

“It’s about _fucking_ time!” Jane shouts, and Darcy laughs as she springs away, running straight out the doors and launching herself at Thor. Thor drops his hammer, and the joyful smile on his face when he opens his arms and lets Jane jump into them is both wonderful and painful to watch all at once.  

“I wondered when he’d turn up,” Bruce says from the kitchen, and Darcy looks away from their touching reunion- they’re making out now anyway. Out of everyone in the Tower, Bruce had been the one to react the sanest to Jane’s news. Or at the very least, he hadn’t gone straight out and bought a million different kinds of baby booties and onesies in Ironman, Hawkeye and Black Widow patterns like _some people_ (and honestly, where did Natasha even manage to _find_ that many booties?) _._ “I’m surprised Jane hasn’t thrown him off the edge of the Tower yet.”

Darcy snickers, and wanders over to pull out some mugs. Bruce kindly turns the kettle on for her and she smiles at him. “Give her time; she’ll remember she’s angry at him soon enough.”

“Mm,” he hums, and Darcy busies herself making tea as he watches Jane and Thor eat face. The look on his face turns bemused when there’s an odd _thud_ on the glass, and Darcy grimaces at the sight of Thor pressing Jane up against the door.

“Oh come on!” she calls out, rolling her eyes fiercely. “Get a room, you idiots!”

Jane- evidently still able to hear her- sends Darcy the bird through the glass and she and Bruce snicker. “Such a loving friendship, you two share,” he remarks dryly. Darcy winks at him. 

“Bruce, honey, _that_ ,” she waves at the wanton display of emotion bordering on indecency currently plastered across the glass, “is not a sight _anyone_ wants to see this early in the morning.”

“It’s one in the afternoon.”

“On a Sunday! That’s morning enough for me.”

Bruce makes a face, and both of them hear the sudden cry of outrage from outside. Jane- apparently remembering that she’s still mad at Thor- is pushing him away, and Darcy can’t stop the guffaw of glee as she watches the tiny woman slap Thor with considerable force. Bruce chokes on his tea and Darcy thinks it about time they make themselves scarce.

“C’mon,” she tells him, picking up her own tea. She directs him with a light hand to his elbow over to the elevators. “Let’s leave the star-crossed lovers alone for a while. Pretty sure neither of us want to see what happens when their clothes start flying off.”

The alarmed look Bruce sends her is worth all the spilt tea in the world.

 

* * *

 

“ _James_.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he exhales, voice resigned. Darcy makes a soft, pained sound in the back of her throat and reaches for him. His skin is hot beneath her touch.

“That’s not true. It’s not a matter of _deserving-_ ”

“I’m cursed, Darcy. There’s blood on my hands. How can I-” he pulls hand away, halfway through the motion of reaching out to caress her face. “How can I even dare to touch you?”

She bites her lip. Lets her hand drop from his arm. “You know I don’t care about that.”

Something unrecognisable flickers across his face, too quick to catch. He looks away, and Darcy can’t be sure, but she thinks the line of his jaw looks gaunter than ever. “Don’t lie to me Darcy, _please_.”

Her mouth falls open in shock. “I’m not- why would you-”

He tilts his head. Smiles at her bitterly. “It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

She flinches away from him, shocked. “I-” she falters, suddenly growing angry. She snarls, “No- you know what- _fuck you_. Don’t start flinging shit around like you’re fucking untouchable!” James’ eyes widen and Darcy reaches out with both hands and _pushes_. He staggers back in surprise, staring at her as though suddenly seeing her for the first time.

“ _Darcy-_ ” he pleads, but he’s fading away, body turning to smoke before her. In moments he’s nothing but dust at her feet and a fading sigh on the wind.

The righteous anger- so bright and strong a few moments ago- dissipates as quickly as it appeared, replaced with a sickening horror. “J-James?” she cries, and falls to her knees. She gropes blindly at his ashes, but it’s like nothing is there at all. “Oh God- _nononono_ \- James? _James!_ ”

There’s no answer. Nothing but a hollow keening sound that echoes in the empty room.

 

* * *

 

“Darcy.”

She startles violently, knocking her empty mug off the desk with her elbow. Thor’s hand shoots out, deftly catching it before she can register what she’s done, and he sets it back down carefully, well out of reach of her flailing elbows. “I apologise, shield sister; it was not my intention to startle you.”

“It’s alright, big guy; guess I was daydreaming.” She smiles at him shakily, and tries tamp down on the unsettled feeling that’s been brewing over the last couple of weeks. Her sleep has been restless, plagued by dreams that have her waking with _his_ name on her lips, and she suspects the lack of sleep is starting to show. Thor’s been back for week and a half now, but between housekeeping Avengers-type things and catching up with Jane, neither have had much of a chance to sit down and talk privately.

“Jane told me of your adventures with your soulmate.”

Darcy raises a brow. “Did she now.” She’d be pissed with Jane were she not so relieved, but truly it’s something of a relief to know she doesn’t need to explain what happened with James to Thor.

Thor bows his head in acquiescence. “Aye. But it is plain to see, for those who look… you have not been faring well.” He says it less like a question and more like a statement, and Darcy mentally curses his observations.

“I keep having these… dreams,” she confesses. The lab is empty but for the two of them, and Thor- like Jane- is one of her closest friends. She trusts him. “And I don’t really remember what happens in them, but I know they have something to do with James.’

Thor rests a meaty hand on her shoulder, and the warmth of his touch seeps straight through her cardigan. “The soul works in mysterious ways,” he rumbles. Darcy bows her head. “Perhaps you are linked to him now, in some way.”

She snorts. “I doubt it; we kissed a sum total of once. Hardly contact enough to merit a link.” As far as she knows, anyway. Soul links are few and far between, even in matched soulmates; enough of a rarity for Darcy to find it unlikely that she and James ever managed to forge one.

Thor smiles at her, and squeezes her shoulder gently. “I suppose not,” he concedes.

“Don’t worry about it,” Darcy waves off his concern, and straightens in her chair to look at him better. “It’s probably just my subconscious, being an asshole. We didn’t part on the happiest of terms.”

He nods slowly, the expression on his face sombre. “I am certain you shall meet him again, some day Lady Darcy.”

She snorts and taps her pen on the desk absently. “Oh, I’m sure. It’s not like we’re in different social circles; he’s Steve’s best friend for fuck’s sake- or he was.” Thor chuckles and she grimaces, rueful. “Whether he’ll want to talk to me is another story altogether.”  She stares down at her desk, strewn with post-it notes and paperclips. “I did a terrible thing, Thor. I hurt him real bad.”

“Darcy,” Thor rumbles, and his hand returns to her shoulder. “I cannot say I understand- for I was not with you these past months. Nor can I promise he will forgive you- for I do not know this man… but I do not believe the blame of these events can rest solely on your shoulders. And if all else fails… he is your soulmate. Past sins or no, you are destined for more than simply hurting the other. Have faith in that.”

Darcy stares up at him, dumbfounded. Thor smiles down at her in sympathy. He seems older, Darcy realises, his eyes more weary than she remembers. She wonders how difficult it must be for him, having a mortal for a soulmate, and to be away from her so often. Does he live in fear of the day Jane will die? Does he worry about their child- what a human-Asgardian mix will be?  “You will find peace; someday, for both of you.”

She smiles back shakily, and lifts her hand to squeeze at his own. “Thanks, big guy.”

The sombre expression on his face clears, replaced with something more jovial. “I must admit… I sought your presence for more than offering my advice.” She snorts and looks up at him expectantly. He smiles sheepishly. “I believe- before my last departure- you promised me a shopping trip?”

She laughs in delight, dropping her pen and leaping up from her chair so quickly Thor has to move back quickly to avoid her crashing into him. “Oh man- why didn’t you say so earlier?” she crows, snatching her handbag and phone from one of her desk drawers. She shoves her phone inside and pulls out her compact and lipstick, before a thought occurs to her and she glances over at Thor. “You wanted to go now, right?”

The large man grins. “I did indeed.”

Darcy hums in satisfaction and looks back down at the compact mirror, carefully re-applying her lipstick (it feels so _good_ to wear makeup again. She’d taken to not bothering during her… road trip, but now that she’s back in the Tower, Darcy is hard-pressed finding a reason _not_ to). “It’s probably a good idea to look for some new clothes for Jane too; Lord knows she won’t want to do it herself.”

Thor snickers; they both know how much Jane loathes clothes shopping, but Thor is surprisingly enthusiastic about the whole thing. There’s never a dull moment, to be sure. “I’m sure she would appreciate our efforts,” he says, smirking at her a little, and Darcy grins at the faint trace of mischief in his eyes.

“Oh Thor,” Darcy takes his arm when he offers it, tucking the compact and lipstick back into her bag, “this is going to be _so much fun_.”

 

* * *

 

“I miss you.”

“Leave me be, James.”

Silence. When she turns around, the cell is empty. The sheets on the little cot look grey beneath the dirty lights.

 

* * *

 

Darcy hears from Steve and Sam intermittently over the following weeks, and a month into their ‘travels’, Natasha decides to join them- evidently calmed down enough to work with them again. On occasion Thor, Tony and Clint leave to help them, too. It’s a relief for Darcy, as from what she can tell from their mission reports and hazy satellite phone calls, Europe is in a far worse than the States had been- mostly by virtue of time, with Hydra having the luxury of regrouping. The Tower always feels emptier without her friends, and Darcy is plagued by mixed feelings towards their absence.

On the one hand, she’s glad to be back. Glad to have her own apartment and bathroom and a bed that no one but her has ever slept it. Glad to be back with her friends. Glad to have her old job again, though it feels oddly boring considering what she’d been doing before.

On the other hand, Darcy misses the intimacy of the five-seater cars and the motels with their shitty, hard beds and inconsistent shower pressure- it had reminded her of her time with Jane and Eric out in New Mexico, before Shield and the Asgardians turned up and totalled the place. She misses Sam and Steve and their easy, jovial banter. Misses feeling _useful_ \- important- and Darcy can’t help wishing she were back in the thick of it. For a time there she was important; she was someone whose input mattered.

But she’s not that person anymore. She’s just Darcy Lewis again- scientist herder and designated Mom friend.

The growing sensation of helplessness makes times like these all the worse, when Jarvis chimes softly through her music, interrupting her halfway through organising a dataset for Jane. “Pardon me, Miss Lewis,” he says, sounding somewhere between neutral and apologetic, “but Black Widow asked me to inform you that ‘the Avengers are presently inbound on the quinjet, ETA two hours’.”

Darcy looks up at the ceiling sharply. The whole gang- excluding Bruce- are with the others at the moment, but the team isn’t due back for another few days. “What? What’s wrong?”

There is an extended pause, as Jarvis seems to confer with someone on the jet. “Black Widow requests you steer clear of the medical centre for the time being.”

Darcy’s blood runs cold and she stares up at the ceiling in horror. “Jarvis, what’s happening? Is someone hurt?”

“Miss Lewis-”

“Jarvis, put me through to someone on the quinjet, please! I don’t care who- just someone who can talk to me.”

Another extended pause. “I am connecting you through to Hawkeye, Miss Lewis.”

She breathes out slowly. “Thank-you.”

Jarvis doesn’t reply, and on her desk, Darcy’s phone lights up as the AI links her through to Clint. She doesn’t know anything about their last mission, but she knows it must have been big enough for Steve, Sam and Natasha to merit calling in the others. She picks up her phone, swiping her finger across the screen with hands that seem to be on the verge of shaking.

“ _Oh heyyyy Darcy!_ ” Clint says, sounding harried, and Darcy’s grip on the phone tightens involuntarily.

“What the hell is going on, Clint? Jarvis said something about staying away from the med centre?”

Over the phone, she hears a muted ‘ _Is that Darcy?_ ’ from who she thinks must be Sam. ‘ _Shit_ ’ someone else says, and the tension in her gut ratchets up another mark. “What’s happened?” she asks again. “Who’s hurt? Can you put Steve on?”

Clint breathes out- loud enough for her to hear it easily over the line. “ _Yeah- um_ …” he says, falsely bright. “ _Steve’s kind of unavailable, right now.”_

Darcy jumps out of her chair. “ _What?_ What the actual _fuck_ Clint- _what_ _is going on?_ ” In her mind’s eye she can see him cringing, and she hears someone else give a pained groan.

“ _For fuck’s sake, Birdbrain you’re just making things worse- gimme the phone_ ,” Sam growls, close enough for Darcy to catch him, and Clint squawks in outrage as the phone is snatched from him. “ _Shut up Barton,_ ” Sam orders, closer to the phone this time. “ _Be useful and watch the wonder twins._ ”

Darcy would be curious, but she’s too anxious, pacing the floor of her office as though somehow it might relieve the churning in her gut. “Sam?”

“ _Hey Darce,_ ” Sam greets her, sounding far more collected than Clint. She pauses her pacing.

“What’s happened to Steve? Is he okay? What happened at the Hydra base- there were so many of you, I thought you’d be fine, but Jarvis said Natasha said something about the med centre and- oh my God, who’s hurt? Oh fuck- is the med centre even well stocked enough-”

“ _Darcy_ , _stop_ ” Sam orders calmly, unaffected by her barrage of questions. “ _You need to calm down, okay? Take some deep breaths; in-_ ” Darcy copies his exaggerated breathing, taking air from deep in her diaphragm, “ _And out.”_ She breathes out, and feels some of the anxiety slip away. She does it again, clinging to Sam’s calm and steady voice.

“ _Feeling better?”_ he asks after a time. She swallows thickly.

“Yeah. Sorry- I started panicking.” Darcy glances back over to her desk. Finding out what’s happening was so much easier when they were still working with Shield. SI is far harder to crack into. “I don’t like not being able to do anything.”

He sighs heavily. “ _I know the feel_ ,” he commiserates. “ _Steve’s fine, by the way; we’re all mostly intact, bar a few cuts and some broken ribs_.” Darcy makes a soft distressed sound and Sam sighs again. “ _It’s nothing serious Darce, I swear. But- uh- the warning’s mostly for-_ ” he clears his throat awkwardly, “ _well. We’ve got company._ ”

Darcy’s eyes widen, and her mind is filled with images of the base in Denver. “Project Chimera?” she breathes, thinking of those poor kids she and James had freed. She still keeps in touch with the X-men- tries to keep as many tabs as she can on the kids. They’re going well, if Ororo is to be believed.

“ _Not quite_ ,” Sam replies, and Darcy breathes out shakily. “ _They’re- uh- they’re a bit too old for Chimera’s MO, but Darcy… we found Bucky_.”

Her stomach drops. She feels somehow hot and cold all at once. “What?”

“ _I don’t know if it was coincidence or if he did it on purpose_ ,” Sam carries on carefully. Darcy suddenly wishes she’d not sent Jane upstairs to have a nap. “ _But he was raiding the compound same time as us. But- um- I don’t know what happened, but he got hurt pretty bad.”_

She makes another distressed sound and staggers over to her chair, collapsing into it with legs that feel like lead. She wonders if this is how Sam felt when he found Steve on the Potomac riverbed. “Oh God-”

“ _It’s nothing serious_ ,” Sam tries to reassure her quickly, but he backtracks even as he says it. “ _Or- well. It’s kind of serious- but he’s got the serum. Steve reckons it’s strong enough to keep him out of harm’s reach for now._ ”

 Darcy squeezes her eyes shut and presses her hand against her mouth. She breathes in slowly, trying to get a hold of the terror that flowered when Sam told her he’d been hurt. “He’ll be okay, right?” she asks in a small voice. Sam sighs.

“ _Yeah, he’ll be okay. Trust me Darce- he’s not going anywhere_.”

“I… okay.” She hears as though in a dream, the sound of the doors to the lab opening and Jane’s heavy footsteps on the hard tiles.

 “Jarvis sent me,” Jane explains when Darcy looks up at her. Her image is blurry, like staring at her through frosted glass and Jane makes an unhappy sound. She tries to breathe, but it feels like she’s in a vacuum. “Gimme the phone.”

“What?”

“Please give me the phone, Darcy,” Jane touches her cheek gently and Darcy hands it over without complaint. She doesn’t think she could say anything more anyway without turning into a blubbering mess. “Thank-you,” her friend murmurs, and her hand slides down to her shoulder, pressing her body forwards and Darcy rests her elbows on her knees, head hanging between them as she fights to control her fear. “Now give us some deep breaths, before you start hyperventilating- yes, that’s it. Good. You’re doing really well honey.” Her hand runs through Darcy’s hair and she bites back a choking sob. “Really well,” Jane reiterates. “Now I’m just going to talk to Wilson, okay? You stay here and work on your breathing, and I promise I’ll tell you everything he tells me.”

Darcy nods and grimaces as tears drip down her nose onto the floor. Jane scratches her head again in comfort, before moving away to talk.

“Listen up, Wilson,” the tiny scientist snaps, abruptly all business. “You better tell me _everything_ that’s happened, or so help me God, I will send the whole jet to Jotunheim! I know how to do that now.”

Darcy laughs wetly from between her knees and closes her eyes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO CHAPTERS TO GO AAAAAHHHHHHH


	23. The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha licks the bowl, Darcy watches the little mermaid and Wanda is unimpressed by Tim Tams. Also Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE FINAL CHAPTER GUYS!!!!!!!!! ALL THAT'S LEFT IS AN EPILOGUE
> 
> This is not compliant to Age of Ultron. The twins may have been ‘volunteers’ in the strictest definition of the word, but Hydra took advantage of their vulnerable situation (they were homeless after the death of their parents) and promised them a whole lot more than they were ever going to get. The twins are also in their late teens in this fic, BECAUSE I CAN. 
> 
> This chapter is the longest single installment of something I have ever written. And yet I'm still kinda pissed that I didn't reach 10K. smh
> 
> And overwhelming thank-you to rlw0810, who has been with me for the fic from what may as well be the beginning, and who read through this last chapter and has just been an absolute cinnamon roll to me through all of this. ILY
> 
> Warnings for the implications of heavy drinking in the first section of this chapter.

Once she gets her nerves under control, Darcy retreats to the kitchen while Jane talks to Sam, stuck in a sort of trance-like state as she leans heavily against the stone benchtop. 

James had been shot.

James was _shot_.

She doesn’t know what to think- what to feel. Everything to do with him is a muddled, tangled mess of emotions. She’s mad at him for abandoning her, but grieves his loss of trust. She barely knew him; can hardly tell anyone the first thing about him, yet she knows he eats his food slowly, but can plough through a tin of mints in less than an hour. Knows how warm he is in the secret cave of their car, knows the funny little sounds his arm makes when he’s unsettled, knows he can’t abide pickles but adores strawberries. Knows the exact cant of his murder strut, the way he moves in soldier mode.

She’s always thought of him as invincible- untouchable- _immortal_. To think of him being hurt enough to let them take him back….

Darcy reaches for a banana, and her hand shakes. She breathes out slowly and peels the fruit, eating it mechanically. It tastes like sawdust in her mouth. Jane must finish talking to Sam at some point, because when she joins Darcy in the kitchen, her phone is nowhere in sight. Jane gives her a cautious smile.

“You okay?”

Darcy shrugs, not really trusting her voice. Jane huffs and plucks her own banana from the fruit bowl. “Do you want to know what happened?”

She nods and takes another bite of the banana. Maybe if she keeps eating, she’ll never have to say anything ever again. Jane would still love her if she was the size of a house. Probably.

“Right,” Jane nods to herself, and the fruit in her hand becomes forgotten. “So from what I can gather from Wilson, Natasha and her frankly terrifying intelligence network heard tell of a facility in Sokovia that was responsible for a whole string of disappearances- children, adults, teenagers, most of them homeless and vulnerable. But when they went to check the place out, they found the facility in a state of panic, and right in the middle of it was Barnes and these kids. Barnes got injured as they were trying to leave- he was trying to defend the girl, apparently.”

Jane harumphs and goes to cross her arms, but grimaces when she realises she’s still holding the banana. She puts it back down on the bench. “Poor kid- she’s pretty messed up over it, Wilson reckons.”

“How bad is it?” Darcy rasps. Jane regards her carefully.

“He got shot a couple of times in the stomach. Lost a lot of blood as he was trying to get them out of the compound; ended up passing out when Nat found him,” she tells her, and Darcy closes her eyes. It’s okay; Sam said James will be alright. He’s a super-soldier and he’s lived through far worse. He’ll be okay. She takes the time to focus on her breathing and the taste of banana in her mouth.

“Darcy?” Jane asks tentatively, and Darcy opens her eyes, startled. She doesn’t know how long she’s been quiet for, but if the concerned look on Jane’s face is anything to go by, it’s been a while. “Is everything okay?”

She breathes out slowly. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Jane glances at the clock on the microwave. “They won’t be back for another hour and a half- you probably won’t be able to see him for even longer.” She pulls a face. “If you even wanted to see him, I suppose.”

“I do,” Darcy says, and is half surprised to realise that she means it.

Jane looks like she’s sucked on a lemon, but she doesn’t argue with her. “Did you want to watch some Say Yes to the Dress?”

Darcy shakes her head, and wanders over to the cabinet filled with Tony’s good alcohol. She can tell from the expression on Jane’s face that she doesn’t approve, but Darcy doesn’t care. “I think this calls for something a little more…” she snags what looks like the cheapest bottle of whiskey, “heavy duty. Jarvis, could pull up Road to Eldorado on the TV please?”

“Certainly, Miss Lewis.”

Darcy plucks a tumbler from the cabinet and wanders over to the sofa. Jane trails behind her, settling down and letting Darcy tuck herself in under her arm. “This’ll probably be no fun if you can’t drink too,” Darcy grumbles, and Jane snickers.

“I can still appreciate the homosexual undertones sober, Darcy.”

“Mmph,” she says intelligently, and pours herself a glass, setting the bottle down on the floor. “But I feel like a loser drinking alone in _company_.”

“Aw Darce,” Jane says, voice turning saccharin. “Drinking alone doesn’t make you a loser; you’re already one!”

Darcy squawks in outrage, glass halfway to her mouth and she pinches Jane’s thigh in retaliation. “Rude.”

Jane pokes her in the side of the ribs. “So’re you!”

Darcy sighs happily, and take a sip of her whiskey. It feels buttery on the tongue, but the burn as she swallows is familiar. “I know.”

 

* * *

 

The teenagers slumped in the chairs outside James’ room in medbay are more of a surprise than they should be.

Darcy bites her lip, unsure of what to do with the unlikely sentries. She’d managed to sneak down here without waking Jane and Thor, the pair of them sprawled out on the sofa in their apartment and snoring softly, and Jarvis, blessedly, hasn’t seemed to have ratted her out to anyone. But now that she’s here, Darcy doesn’t really know why she’d thought this is a good idea; James only come out of surgery and hour ago, and is no doubt still as dead to the world as the rest of the tower.

Maybe she just wanted to watch him sleep.

She takes a tentative step forwards and the girl’s eyes snap open. Darcy freezes, unable to shake the unreasonable feeling that she’s been caught doing something naughty.

“Pietro,” the girl murmurs, and she elbows the boy slumped onto her shoulder. He jerks away from her with a sharp intake of breath, gaze falling on Darcy almost instantly.

“Who’re you?” he asks, voice sharp and heavily accented.

“Um,” Darcy says intelligently. The guy’s image seems to flicker and smear, and the waiting room is swept up into a sudden and short whirlwind, the glossy magazines on the glass coffee table fluttering open. Her ears pop in response to the change in pressure and Darcy yelps at the feeling of something flicking sharply against her chest. Pietro is suddenly holding a phone, flicking through it with interest and Darcy blinks in confusion, recognising the metallic blue case.

“Is that- did you just steal my phone?” she asks, aghast. Pietro barely even spares her a glance.

“Darcy Lewis,” he says absently, still flicking through her phone. “Twenty-eight years old. Graduated from Culver University.”

“Wha- how- you just stole my phone! And now you’re looking through my-” her eyes widen- “oh my God are you _Facebook_ _stalking_ me?”

He sends her an amused smirk that does nothing to settle her frazzled nerves. “Am I really stalking your Facebook if I am using your account?”

“Pietro,” the girl says again, staring at Darcy curiously. There is a clear warning in her voice and Pietro stops, looking at his sister (she assumes it’s her sister, anyway) guiltily.

“I was only having fun,” he grumbles, but his sister shakes her head. “We don’t know who she is; she could be dangerous!”

“She is not dangerous,” the girl says knowingly, and there’s something in her unwavering gaze that makes Darcy uneasy. Like she can stare straight into Darcy’s soul. “She’s his soulmate.”

Darcy blanches. “How do you know that?”

She tilts her head, birdlike, staring at Darcy in fascination. “You’re smaller than I thought,” she murmurs. Darcy smiles at her- more a fear reaction than anything else.

“Officially creeping me out now.”

Regret flickers across the girls face and her cheeks pink. “I- sorry,” she says, and holds out her hand as a peace offering. Darcy takes it gingerly. “I am Wanda, and the thief there is Pietro, my brother.” Wanda glares at her brother and he scowls, handing Darcy’s phone back to her reluctantly.

“Sorry,” he says. Darcy shrugs him off nonchalantly.

“It’s cool- so long as you haven’t gone and changed my name or whatever.”

He pinks ever so slightly and clears his throat, as though the thought had occurred to him. Wanda grimaces and elbows him in the side. “Pietro!”

“I didn’t!” he exclaims, and glances to the side, looking embarrassed. “I could not think of a funny name.”

Wanda purses her lips, looking amused but trying to be cross and in any other situation, Darcy might laugh. She’s sure that were their meeting under happier circumstances, the three of them would get on like a house on fire.

“Where’s Steve?” she asks, wishing she could see through the curtain drawn closed on James’ room. “Is he inside?”

Wanda shakes her head. “Wilson dragged him away about half an hour ago.”

The corner of her lips twitch in amusement; she can just imagine how well that went down. Steve handles being coddled about as well as can be expected for someone who spent most of their life tiny, sick and righteously angry.

Wanda glances back at the door to James’ room, gaze thoughtful. “He sleeps, for now,” she says, and Darcy nods slowly. She’s not sure how the younger woman knows that, and is not about to ask her; supers can be incredibly tight-mouthed when it comes to discussing their powers in her experience but even if they weren’t, it’s not as if it’s any of her business.

Darcy stares pointedly at the door instead, and Wanda jumps away as though burnt, dragging Pietro with her. “Of course!” she exclaims, voice apologetic all over again. Darcy wonders if she has any idea about the history between her and James. It’s been months- long enough to sooth the sting of their parting, but the thought of him- hurt or not- makes her chest ache fiercely. “He probably- ah- probably will not be good company.”

Darcy smiles absently. “That’s okay.” She rather prefers it that way anyway. She moves past the twins and is proud when she hesitates only a moment, hand hovering over the doorhandle. “Thanks,” she says quietly, and Wanda smiles at her in encouragement. Darcy opens the door before she can say anything else uncanny. She’s grateful.

And then she’s not, because James is _right there_ and he’s so still and silent and _small_ , like the all the vitality has been sucked right out of him, swathed in white and blue blankets and Darcy’s certain she’s forgotten how to breathe.

The door closes behind her with a quiet _click_ , and now it’s just her and James- only it’s _not_ because James is unconscious or sleeping or whatever the hell state he’s in and Darcy has never felt so alone in all her life. He looks so vulnerable, a faint frown beneath his brows and his hand sitting on top of the blankets is lax, fingers curling in ever so slightly, an IV inserted into the crease of his elbow. Darcy moves towards him slowly, as though trying to swim through molasses. She doesn’t know what to do- should she talk to him? Watch him? Touch his hand? There’s a cannula wrapped beneath his nose and some kind of monitor attached to his pointer finger; Darcy doesn’t want to disrupt anything, but touching him feels like an invasion of his hard won privacy anyway.

She stands at the side of the bed uncertainly; Darcy doesn’t think she could tear her eyes away from James even if she tried. She wonders if he knows she’s here- wonders if he’s dreaming, or if there’s only darkness in his mind now. She doesn’t know which one he’d rather. She breathes out slowly, and her hands fall to the firm mattress, just shy of his arm; she can feel the faint warmth radiating off him.

“What am I doing here?” she breathes, voice breaking the quiet. She sighs again, fingers digging into the blankets a moment before she removes them- or tries to. The hand wrapped clumsily around her wrist rather puts a dampener on things.

“Darce?” James rasps, gaze hazy and unfocussed. Darcy would reply, but she’s frozen in place, stuck somewhere between her fight or flight instinct. James turns confused. “‘M I dreamin’ ‘gain?” he slurs, and Darcy wonders if this is what hell must feel like.

James’ expression turns disappointed as her silence grows and he lets go of her arm. Darcy shudders at his absence. “Shoulda known,” he sighs, gaze sad. He closes his eyes and Darcy feels like the ground’s been snatched out from under her. She backs away as his breathing evens out again and his pulse on the monitor slows. She stumbles away from the bed and the door handle is cold and clunky in her hand as she opens it, almost falling through in her eagerness to get away from the room with its silence and _James_ lying so quiet and motionless, the memories of watching the betrayal and anger pass across his face snapping at her heels like a rabid dog.

Wanda and Pietro jump from their chairs, surprised by her entrance. “Darcy-” Wanda starts, but Darcy is shaking her head vehemently.

“I can’t-” she breathes, stumbling in her haste- “I thought I could but I _can’t_ \- _fuck!_ ”

Darcy feels the twin’s startled gaze on her as she flees; hot, like four burning brands on her back.

 

* * *

 

Darcy gets the news two days later that James has been released from the medbay. Natasha tells her, watching Darcy carefully like she knows all about Darcy sneaking into James’ room that first night (and lets be real, she probably does, though as far as Darcy can tell the twins never told anyone about her late night visit). Darcy, halfway through the motions of pouring a bowl of melted chocolate into her brownie batter, fumbles slightly, but recovers quickly enough. She wears a mask of friendly disinterest, grateful that Natasha has the mercy at least to talk to her in the privacy of her own apartment.

“That’s good,” she says, and stirs the batter mechanically.

Natasha steals the empty bowl of chocolate and a clean spatula, scraping down the sides of the bowl methodically, like everything she does, and regards Darcy with a shrewd eye. “You’re fooling no one,” she informs her and Darcy sighs heavily, staring down at the batter in irrational anger.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Cut the bullshit, Lewis. You don’t need to be carved from stone. You’re allowed to-” Natasha’s lips pull back, as though it pains her to speak- “have _feelings_. About this- about him.”

“I don’t see why I should have to,” Darcy snaps. “You get on plenty well without them.”

Natasha regards Darcy quietly. Her grip on the spatula is loose- unaffected- but when she speaks her voice is tight. “You know that’s untrue.”

Darcy’s face flushes in guilt. “I do,” she says, holding her friend’s gaze in apology. “I’m sorry- I didn’t mean that- you don’t deserve to bear the brunt of my temper.”

Natasha blinks slowly- cat-like- and turns her attention back to the bowl of chocolate, bringing the spatula to her mouth. “You’re tense- Barnes’ invaded your safe space. It’s understandable.”

Darcy swallows thickly. She pours the batter into a cake tin, lined with her usual degree of care (or lack thereof). She puts it on the oven and sets a timer on her phone before she speaks again. “I don’t- I don’t know what to feel,” she confesses. “I want to be angry at him- for kidnapping me and- _well_. I want to be mad- _I do_ \- but every time I think of him all I can see is the _betrayal_ in his eyes and I-” her voice wavers and she looks away, fingernails digging into the fleshy part of her palms, “I can’t go through that again, but I _want_ to. I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you love him?”

Darcy looks up sharply, surprised. “I- wha- _no_.”

Natasha casually licks the chocolate from the spatula as though conversations like these are perfectly normal. “Why not? It’s blatantly obvious that you care about him.”

Darcy shakes her head. “It’s- it’s not a matter of whether or not I love him, Nat- it’s _not,_ so don’t give me that look! I knew him for like, a handful of days for fuck’s sake. That’s not long enough for anyone to do so, and anyone who says it is, is a dirty fucking liar.”

“Then why get yourself worked up over this?” Natasha asks in the same tone one might use to discuss the weather.

“Because he’s my _soulmate_. He was made for me, and I for him.” Natasha pulls a face but Darcy is unrepentant. “I want- I want to know if he’s worth it, you know?”

A faint crease forms between Natasha’s brows. “I don’t.”

Darcy stares down at the granite benchtop, and chooses her words carefully. “Happiness doesn’t end with soulmates- _you_ told me that. And I know, rationally, that James doesn’t have to be the person I love for the rest of my life, and frankly considering how things have gone between us, I wouldn’t be surprised if he never wanted to talk to me again…” she leans over the bench, elbows resting on the cold stone. “But I want to know if he’s worth it. If he’s worth doing my fucking best to try and fix this _thing_ between us.

“I can see myself loving him,” she says softly. Natasha is impassive. “I can see myself spending the rest of my life with him… but I don’t know how I can- what I-” Darcy huffs in frustration. “Is he worth breaking my heart all over again? Should I even try?”

Natasha regards her silently and Darcy wonders not for the first time how cruel a fate it must be to have to deal with soulmate problems when her own has been dead since childhood. “As much as I’d like to offer my two cents to this,” she says carefully, “I don’t think it’s really my place. This is a conversation you need to have with _him_.”

Darcy sighs heavily and sags into the bench. “I know,” she groans, and closes her eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

 

* * *

 

“I told you Steve, I’m fine! Quit fussin’ wouldja?”

Darcy freezes in the corridor, just out of sight of the glass doors to Tony’s workshop, and silently panics. She knows that voice- it’s been ingrained into her soul and _dammit_ but she thought she’d done a good job of avoiding him so far. A whole _week_. She still doesn’t know if she should be relieved or dismayed that she’s not seen him.

 “Can’t help it, Buck. It’s that ugly mug of yours. And are ya sure you wanna keep that hair? It’s getting’ awful long.”

“You ain’t fuckin’ touching the hair, Rogers. I like it long,” James growls, and Darcy shivers at the sound of it. He sounds so different, and yet utterly the same. She stares blankly down at the plate of curry in her hands, reheated for Tony.

(The Brooklyn accent is new, she notes absently. She’s only ever heard brief slips of it before.)

“You look like a damn raccoon.”

“Murder hobo chic is more like it,” she hears Sam pipe in.

“Careful you two; I could still beat your ass any day of the week, long hair or not.”

Steve snickers. “You should get Wanda to braid it.”

“I should,” James replies, voice lighter than Darcy can ever remember it being when she’d been with him. “I reckon she’d make me real pretty.”

Darcy hears someone grunt and the rustle of fabric, and the sound of a door opening in the lab. “As touching as it is to watch the golden oldies wrestling like a pair of teenagers,” Tony says, voice bemused, “I’m going to need Terminator here to sit down.”

“Suit yourself, Tin Man,” James snipes back, easy as a breeze, and Darcy backs away from the labs, before she can be caught out for eavesdropping.

 

* * *

 

The twins are… well Darcy doesn’t want to call them strange, but they are a _little_ odd. Not that that’s anything new, to be fair. Not when her best friend and boss is, for all intents and purposes, pregnant with a _demigod_ ; one of her (for lack of a better word) housemates can turn into an indestructible green rage monster; another two like to crawl through the air vents for _fun;_ and another created a new element out of shit he found in his pigsty of a workshop. So yeah, odd is not the best descriptor, but it’s the best Darcy’s got.

It’s nothing overt; for the most part, Darcy reckons they’re just two normal teenagers with some less-than-normal powers. But when she takes to watching them- which she does more often than she likes, though they avoid the labs like the plague (Darcy doesn’t have to think too hard to know why _that_ might be)- the way they move together… there’s something almost precognitive about it. Wanda will pass Pietro a banana without even glancing at him, or hand over a protein bar moments before he says he’s hungry. Pietro will wordlessly hand over a knife to her without needing to be asked.

One is rarely seen without the other, still on the defensive in an unfamiliar place. They’re all little things, easily passed off with the excuse of familiarity, but to Darcy it speaks of something _more_ (more than Pietro’s superspeed and Wanda’s tentative telekinesis, that is) _._ She wonders if it’s a souvenir from Hydra, or if they’ve always been like this.

She doesn’t know what to do with them, to be honest. She _wants_ to mother them and feed them and be their friends, but the whole thing with James returning (and _staying_ ) has put her on edge. That their loyalties clearly lie with James doesn’t help things either; Darcy feels self-conscious and guilty around them, though she doesn’t know if they even know the whole depressing story about her and James. Pietro doesn’t seem to care much about that fact, and for the most part doesn’t talk to her, content with glaring at her like she’s personally offended him.

In contrast, Darcy suspects Wanda _does_ know the whole story ( _how_ is another thing entirely, but that’s a bag of cats Darcy is wholly uninterested in poking), and mostly looks at Darcy with those sad doe eyes of hers. Like she’s waiting for the two of them to kiss and make up. Act like nothing ever went wrong.

Darcy doesn’t know which is worse.

 

* * *

 

“Pardon me, Miss Lewis, but Miss Maximoff is at the door.”

Darcy looks up from her book, startled. “What?”

“Miss Maximoff would like with you. Shall I let her in, or would you like me to tell you are unavailable?”

Darcy glances down at her singlet and shorts ensemble. The cut of her singlet isn’t perhaps entirely fit for human consumption. “Is Pietro… not with her?”

“Mister Maximoff is presently sparring with Sergeant Barnes in the gymnasium.”

Darcy breathes out a sigh of relief. “Okay- then yeah, she’s welcome to come in. Thanks J.” She puts her book down and slaps her hair into a rough and messy bun on top of her head as she hears the door to her apartment open. Darcy jumps up, plastering a tentative smile on her face.

“Hey Wanda,” she greets the younger woman, who looks just as uncertain to be here as Darcy is at having her. “What’s up? You want a coffee?”

Wanda blinks at her, surprised. She smiles. “Coffee sounds wonderful,” she says softly, joining Darcy in the kitchen. Darcy motions at the stools at the counter as she busies herself with the coffee machine, back to her.

“So what are you here for?” she asks again, tossing the question over her shoulder. The coffee machine gurgles at her loudly.

“I haven’t seen you much.” Wanda speaks slowly, her accent tight, as though thinking of her words carefully, and Darcy turns around properly to watch her. Wanda smiles at her shyly and Darcy notes with faint relief that there’s no judgement in her eyes. “But I was wondering if you’d like to…” she frowns, obviously searching for the words, “hang out?”

Darcy’s eyes widen in surprise, but she controls herself quickly. “I- sure!” She glances down at her pyjamas, smiling self-depreciatingly. “Did you want to hang out now? Because I- uh- may need a bit of time to be fit for public outings.”

Wanda’s eyes widen and she shakes her head vehemently. “No-no, I’d rather stay in, to be honest.” She glances over at the TV on the opposite site of Darcy’s frankly palatial apartment, and Darcy grins knowingly. “My friends and I- our favourite thing to do was watch movies. Pietro did not approve, but I…” she trails off and Darcy’s smile fades momentarily before she forces it back onto her face.

“What kinda movies we talking about here?”

Wanda presses her lips together and her cheeks pink slightly. “I always liked the children movies,” she says in a small voice, as though it’s something to be ashamed of. Darcy claps her hands with exaggerated glee.

“Ohmigosh, Disney movies sound like my _jam_ today.” She gushes, and she slides Wanda’s coffee over to her. “Unless you wanted to watch something else? I’m keen either way.”

“No,” Wanda says, and grasps the handle of the mug gingerly. “Disney movies sound good to me.”

“I don’t have any popcorn,” she tells the younger woman apologetically, but she turns back to rummage through her snacks cabinet, pulling out the package she’s looking for. Spending time with Wanda feels like a momentous occasion, and merits more than simple chocolate biscuits. “You like chocolate, right?”

Wanda makes a soft, insulted sound and taps her foot. “Who does not?”

“You’d be surprised,” Darcy hums, and slaps the packet of cookies onto the stone benchtop. “You ever had tim tams before?”

She eyes the blue package with thinly-veiled scepticism. “No.”

“Oh-ho- girl, you are in for a Good Time.” Darcy herds Wanda over to the sofa, settling down and pulling up the Netflix menu for them to browse through. “When I was in high school, my family had an Australian exchange student stay for six months; she came with half a suitcase full of these babies, I swear. She still sends me a care package from time to time; you should see the flavours they get there. It’s insane, but double coat is the best.” Darcy opens the bag with relish and Wanda raises a brow, corners of her lips upturned. Darcy offers her one of the biscuits reverently, and the young woman takes a bite from one of the corners. She frowns.

“It is just a chocolate biscuit,” she says flatly, sounding disappointed. Darcy gapes at her in mock outrage.

“Just a biscuit? Wanda, honey, tim tams are the _ultimate_ biscuit. They are _the_ Chocolate Cookie.”

Wanda wrinkles her nose and takes another bite. “They are not _bad_. I was just expecting… more.”

Darcy shakes her head. “Expecting more- you’re a hard one to please, aren’t you Wanda Maximoff?”

Wanda pinks slightly, but she’s smiling. “Pietro would say my standards are too high.”

Darcy cackles a little and takes her own tim tam, leaving the package open on the coffee table for them to snack on. “Well here’s for hoping your standards on kid flicks isn’t so high; whatcha got a hankering for?”

Wanda’s brow scrunches as she translates Darcy’s slang, but her expression clears quickly enough. Darcy makes a mental note to avoid too much colloquial speech in the future though. It must be hard enough having to deal with living in an unfamiliar place, let alone try to understand the catchphrases and cultural references thrown about the Tower like funfettit.

“I think I would not mind watching the Little Mermaid.”

Darcy raises her brow, but nods. “Old school. I like it.” She pulls up the movie and there’s a slight pause as the website buffers. Darcy gets comfortable on the couch whilst the movie begins and Wanda copies her with only a brief hesitation and a few surreptitious glances at her that Darcy pretends she doesn’t notice.

Wanda eases up as the movie progresses, and by the end of it the pair of them are bagging out Prince Eric and his questionable taste in women like the best of them. They’re giggling like pretweeners by the time the credits roll, an empty packet of tim tams before them and a half-drunk bottle of creaming soda sitting on the floor. Darcy leans up on an elbow to look at Wanda, a question in her eyes.

Wanda glances at the tv slyly. “Another?” she asks. Darcy grins at her approvingly.

“Wanda, my dear friend, I am just letting you know now that I am one hundred percent okay with a day-long Disney movie binge. Or even a weekend long binge, though I warn you, we may have to invite Jane along at some point. And Natasha will inevitably find out and invite herself along too.”

Wanda laughs, the sound light and carefree. It suits her. “I am glad; I worried you would perhaps not want to spend time with me.”

Darcy smiles at her bemused. “Why? Because you and Pietro came in with James?”

Wanda shrugs, glancing away. The light-hearted moment sobers. “You avoid him. I was worried that we made you uncomfortable. You don’t speak to us very much.”

“You do,” Darcy blurts out. Wanda flinches and she makes a soft, angry sound, irritated with herself. “Or you did. It’s not- it’s not you guys. I think I’ve been jealous, to be honest. The pair of you are intimidating, sure. Your brother has a mighty glare, let me tell you. But that’s not why… I just-” she laughs self-depreciatingly. Wanda is almost a stranger, but for all Darcy’s joking, she knows the pair of them would be good friends if she lets them. “I was jealous and… I guess I just felt like you were out of bounds. His, not mine. Like we divorced and he got custody of the pets- or the kids, I guess.”

Wanda raises a brow and Darcy gets the distinct feeling that she’s trying hard not to laugh at her. “Pietro and I are not children. Or dogs.”

Darcy grimaces and nudges her thigh with her foot. “I _know_ that. The analogy kind of ran away from me there. Sorry.”

“It is okay,” she murmurs, and uncaps the soda bottle with a soft hiss. She takes a deep swig straight from the bottle and hands it over when Darcy holds out a tentative hand. “I understand you. But we are _not_ children, and our friendship is not exclusive.”

Darcy smiles at her sheepishly and jiggles the bottle at her. “Getting that impression. Sorry, again.”

Wanda waves her off, but she sobers quickly. “Darcy,” she says quietly, “I know it isn’t my place, but he misses you.”

Darcy swallows, mouth suddenly dry. She stares down at the bottle. “Forgive me if I don’t quite believe you.”

Wanda sighs and looks back at the tv. “Did you want to watch another movie?”

Darcy breathes out shakily, and firmly pushes away the guilt threatening to turn her into an incoherent mess all over again. Wanda, at least, looks somewhat contrite for bringing up the topic and Darcy is quick to forgive her. “That sounds like a really good idea,” she says, and brings up the Disney listings again.

* * *

 

“I told ya Steve, I don’t give a shit about the Press or whatever other excuse you’ve got cooked up. I’ve been cooped up in this Godforsaken tower for _two weeks_ ; any longer and I’m gonna start shooting things I’m not meant to.”

Darcy holds herself very still in her lab, mind caught up in an absurd fantasy where James and Steve are somehow akin to the T-rex in Jurassic Park, and will only notice her if she moves. She can see the indistinct and blurry shapes of them outside Jane’s lab in her computer monitor, and she shares a startled, wide-eyed stare with Jane.

“I get it Bucky, I do,” Steve replies, sounding tired and frustrated. “But it’s not safe out there!”

‘ _What the hell,_ ’ Jane mouths at her. Darcy continues to stare at her like a startled rabbit.

“Stevie, who do you think you’re kidding? I’m the fuckin’ Winter Soldier. If you should be concerned about anyone, it should be every other person on the damn planet!”

Steve makes an unhappy sound. “I didn’t mean it like that-”

“Yeah you did, Punk.” An extended pause. Darcy prays they don’t turn and realise the door to Jane’s lab is slightly ajar (all the better to hear Tony with). “I’m not gonna just leave and never come back you know.”

“I never said you were!”

“Yeah, but you were thinkin’ it,” James growls. Darcy can just imagine the very Manly And Stoic/Emotionally Constipated looks both men are sharing. “I won’t though. I’ve got… responsibilities now. I _can’t_.”

Another long pause and a heavy sigh from Steve. “Just… don’t get yourself into trouble, okay? And steer clear of the hot dog stalls; if anything they’re _worse_ now.”

James snickers, and Darcy hears an audible _smack_ , as though he slaps his hand on Steve’s back. “Yeah, yeah. It’s not like I haven’t eaten worse.”

“You say that now,” Steve says darkly and James laughs again, and their voices fade away, footsteps soft on the hard floors.

Darcy slumps against her desk as soon as she can’t hear them anymore. “Oh my God,” she groans. Jane makes a sympathetic sound and pats her back. “There’s no escape.”

“He’s right about the hotdogs at least,” Jane says sagely, and she yelps when Darcy pokes her sharply in the thigh.

 

* * *

 

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” she asks absently, attention still firmly set on her monitor as she works though Jane’s data sets (the woman may be heavily pregnant, but the baby is yet to stop her from working).

“It’s your conscience,” the mellow voice says, “come to ask if you’ve been naughty or nice.”

She looks up with a bemused frown. “I think someone’s getting their pop culture references mixed up. What’s wrong Wilson, you getting old? Hit your head one too many times?”

Sam snorts and flips her the bird. “Sass will get you nowhere, Lewis.”

Darcy sucks her teeth. “See, you say that, but sass is how I managed to land my last three jobs, so I call bullshit.”

He rolls his eyes and leans on her shoulder, peering curiously at her computer as Darcy yelps and tries to shove him off. Sam grimaces at the wall of numbers on the screen with distaste. “And look where it’s gotten you. Jesus, it’s no wonder you’re half-mad.”

Darcy finally manages to elbow him sharply in the side and Sam yelps and dodges away. “Half-mad _and_ capable of tasing your miserable ass Wilson, and don’t you forget it.”

Sam pouts at her.  “Duly noted,” he grouses, and takes a sip of her coffee left forgotten on the desk. Darcy takes no small amount of pleasure in watching him flinch- with any luck, it’s cold and far too sweet for his liking. “Jesus Christ- coffee this sweet is a crime against nature!” he complains with a grimace. “You and Steve disgust me.”

Darcy shrugs and snatches the mug from his hand, getting up and dumping the cold coffee down the sink in the lab’s kitchenette. “What do you want, Wilson?”

Sam makes an insulted sound. “What, I can’t come to hang out with my favourite lab assistant and part-time vigilante?”

Darcy grins back at him. “What, you mean the good Captain’s not your favourite vigilante?” she drawls, and rolls the ache of sitting too long from her shoulders with a soft groan.

“Nah- he has a tendency to steal the covers far more than you’d think America’s sweetheart would merit.” He grimaces again. “And for some reason, our rooms are heinously cold. I’m half convinced Stark’s altered the thermostat deliberately, but he swears black and blue it ain’t him.”

Sam sounds very much like he whole-heartedly believes it _is_ Stark. Darcy wouldn’t put it past him, to be honest. It’s juvenile enough. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

Sam snaps his fingers at her. “Right. Steve and I wanted you to come over for dinner. We don’t hang out enough anymore.”

Darcy freezes momentarily, before forcing herself to relax. “Oh?”

Sam smiles at her knowingly, and Darcy wonders for a moment how well he and Wanda must get along; the expression is uncannily similar. “Just the three of us; no unexpected guests, promise.”

Darcy smiles, the tightness in her chest easing. “Are we having takeout?”

Sam bristles in mock outrage. “Why Lewis, are you doubting Falcon and Captain America’s culinary abilities?”

Darcy points at him with a pen, unimpressed, and hitches her handbag over her shoulder. “Sam, _honey_. Falcon you may be, and soulmate you may have, but the pair of you are still bachelors at heart.”

“I resent that statement.”

“And yet, I hear no rebuttal.”

He glares at her half-heartedly. “We were gonna get Indian,” he admits eventually as they leave the lab.

Darcy laughs all the way to the lifts.

 

* * *

 

Darcy’s out of the elevator and three steps into the communal living space when she realises she’s made a terrible mistake.

She’s come up to steal some milk from the communal fridges; she’d been halfway through making mac and cheese and fresh out of milk, and far too lazy to be bothered leaving the Tower to buy some when there’s several gallons of the stuff upstairs. But all hopes of an uninterrupted milk retrieval mission are dashed by the sound of a throaty laugh cut short.

She freezes in the abrupt silence that follows, caught like a terrified rabbit beneath the surprised stares of Wanda, Clint and _James_. Her heart stutters in her chest at the sight of him, breath stopping altogether.

This was a mistake _\- oh God-_ why didn’t she ask who’s up here- _Jesus God_ \- but she’s done _so good,_ it’s been an age since she last caught so much as a glimpse of him- fucking _fuck-_ she needs to go, needs to leave right fucking no-

“Darcy.”

The sound of his raspy voice breaks the spell and she makes a soft, fearful sound, remembering with vivid clarity the cottonwood and his angry words, and the devastating feeling of abandonment, empty tire tracks on gravel.

(Distantly, her brain registers how _good_ he looks- clean and put together and disarmingly _normal_ , hair pulled back into a small ponytail, but they are thoughts to be unpacked _later_.)

James takes a step towards her and Darcy’s heart skips another beat. She stumbles backwards into the lift, slamming her hand on the close door button even as James runs towards her, calling out her name, but by some small miracle the doors slide shut just in time, cutting off the sound of his voice.

“Fuck,” she breathes, feeling stupid and cowardly and utterly unable to stop herself. “Fucking _shit_! My floor, Jarvis,” she rasps and the AI wisely doesn’t comment when she kicks the wall in frustration. Darcy feels the familiar sensation of lightness as they travel downwards and she desperately grapples with the panic growing in her chest. She stumbles from the elevator as soon as the doors open, feet almost tripping on the plain commercial carpet.

“Pardon me, Miss Lewis,” Jarvis says apologetically as she slaps her palm onto the biometric reader, staggering into her living room and collapses in a heap on her sofa, “but my sensors are detecting that you are in a state of distress. Would you like me to send for assistance?”

Darcy looks up at the ceiling in mortificatio. “No!” she all but shouts, and closes her eyes, sinuses burning with the threat of tears. “It’s stupid- I’ll be fine, please don’t send anyone.”

Jarvis is silent for a long moment. “As you wish, Miss Lewis,” the AI says eventually, and Darcy doesn’t know if it’s just the product of an idiot woman’s mind or real, but his voice seems softer. Kinder.

She clenches her hands and curls into a ball, feeling horrified and ashamed at her behaviour. “Thanks, J,” she says, and groans. She’d been hoping she might just avoid him for long enough that he might somehow forget about her. Or leave. Either had seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s glaringly obvious that it’s not going to happen. “God, I’m such an idiot.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Darcy screams and leaps off the sofa in fright. James stands behind the coffee table, hands help up as though approaching a wild animal. “Sorry- didn’t mean to scare you-” he pulls a face, looking almost shamed- “again.”

Darcy’s breath catches in her throat, the sensation familiar, like meeting an old friend. It’s been _months_ since she’s seen him properly. An age since she’s heard more than his drugged rambling direct at her. “What- what are you doing here?”

James glances behind himself, sheepish. “You left the door open.”

Darcy sucks in a sharp breath, suddenly remembering exactly why she’d run away in the first place. She backs away from him, skirting around the sofa. Her hands grip the plush fabric, like she could tear chunks from it. James watches her with a pained expression. “Darcy- don’t, please,” he pleads, voice quiet, but Darcy _doesn’t understand._ The last time they’d spoken, James had very clearly and plainly washed his hands of her. That tone of voice _makes no sense_.

“Why are you here?” she asks again, voice wavering as she backs further into the kitchen. “Why did you follow me?”

He smiles wryly. “You’ve avoided me for four weeks,” he says softly, but doesn’t follow her. “I thought maybe it was time to stop letting you.”

 “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

Something unreadable flickers across his face. “I dreamt of you,” he says, abruptly changing the subject. Darcy flinches and looks away. Bites the inside of her cheek. “I thought maybe- somehow-” he breaks off. Sighs. Starts again. “I saw you in my dreams- almost every night. You haunted me, wherever I went…  I thought, somehow, we’d got linked. But then we came back here and- nothing.”

“James-”

“Bucky,” he corrects her. Darcy watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I go by Bucky now.” He looks at her pleadingly. The space between them feels unsurpassable to Darcy, but Ja- _Bucky’s_ always been capable of the impossible. “Were they real?”

“What does it matter?” she asks, incredulous. He clenches his jaw.

“I kept hurting you,” he says haltingly. “Dream after dream, it’s like I couldn’t stop myself. I’d say something and you’d turn away and I was alone again. Please Darcy, I need to know- need to know if I-”

“If you hurt me?” she asks derisively. She laughs, the sound sharp and bitter. “They were just dreams, James! They didn’t hurt me- not like the way you hurt me when you _left me at Pierce’s safehouse_.”

Anger lights up his face and his upper lip curls in retaliation. “Then I guess that makes two of us, don’t it?”

Darcy rears back as though slapped, throat closing up like she’s going to puke. “Get out,” she says flatly. His nose flares.

“Darcy-” he tries, but she only grows angrier.

“I said _get out_!” she snarls, filling with a desperate, defensive fury. “You don’t get to just come in here- to my apartment- to my _home_ \- and act like you’re some spring fucking chicken-”

“Darcy-” he moves forwards, arms reaching out as if to grab her and she stumbles back, furious and scared all at once.

“Don’t touch me!” she cries, back hitting the cold enamelled metal of her fridge and Bucky jumps back from her as though burnt. She clenches her hands, nails digging into her palms. “You need to leave, before I call for Thor to _make_ you.”

“Darcy, _please!_ ”

It’s the desperation that makes her pause, and he latches onto her hesitation shamelessly. “I’m sorry- I didn’t come here to hurt you more.”

“Well congratu-fucking-lations, because that’s exactly what you managed!”

He clenches his jaw again, eyes sadder than they should have any right to be. Darcy contemplates goading him back into anger, let them snap and snarl at each other until their wounds are torn open, barely healed scars rubbed raw, but she’s already at the end of her tether. More anger will either put her in tears or turn this into a full-blown screaming match. Possibly both.

Bucky is the first to look away. “Fuck, I’ve messed this up,” he breathes, and rubs at his face tiredly. “I’m sorry- Wanda said you didn’t hate me, but it’s pretty obvious that you need more time-”

“Wanda?” Darcy asks sharply. “What’s Wands got to do with this?”

Bucky huffs a mirthless laugh. “Wanda has it in her head that the two of us can- I don’t know- ‘get over’ this _thing_ between us.” His gaze turns sad again. “But I don’t know if we can. If we could- if we _should_. I’m not- not good for you, Darce.”

Darcy remains silent, unsure of what to say. Bucky sighs and bites the corner of his lip. He looks close to crying. “I should go,” he says quietly, and the line of his shoulders is slumped, hunched forward as though protecting himself from any blows she might rain upon him. He turns as if to leave and Darcy is struck by the sudden surety that if she lets him leave now, the things between them will never heal. They’ll only ever be strangers, caught in the tangled, fickle strings of what Could Have Been.  

The certainty of their fate terrifies her.

“Why did you leave? That day, why’d you call for Steve?”

Bucky pauses. Her words are an offering; an olive branch- dipped in poison- but an offering of peace all the same. When he turns back to her, his eyes are cautiously hopeful.

“I was so _angry_ ,” he says lowly, gaze unwavering. In the quiet of her apartment, she can hear the soft hum of the mechanisms in his arm. “The sight of you- I couldn’t-” the whirring in his arm grows louder. Bucky sighs heavily. “I couldn’t deal with it. Part of me thinks that I left so I wouldn’t hurt you… I was so furious-” he flushes lightly- “I tore apart the car when I finally stopped. I’d have been a danger to you if I’d stayed- _more_ of a danger. Part of me reasoned that we were better off apart. I should have made you go back to Steve after that first safehouse.”

“Ha,” she says. Her head hits the fridge with a soft _thunk_. “Yeah... probably would have had a happier ending for the both of us.”

“Is that what this is?” Bucky’s voice is soft; tentative. “An ending?”

She straightens and regards him solemnly. If they’re going to have this conversation; if she ever wants even the _hope_ of a relationship with him in the future, all her cards need to go on the table. “I don’t want it be.”

Bucky sucks in a sharp breath, surprised. “Neither do I.”

She swallows, mouth dry. “I’m sorry,” she says, and Bucky’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry that I never told you- I-I should have told you from the beginning,” her eyes burn and she rubs at her face, sniffling. “I should have told you but I was so _scared_ \- I was a fucking coward, and in the end we-” she’s crying now, voice tremulous with regret and pain- “we both got hurt and James, I am _so_ sorry! I didn’t mean for it go like this- I’m so sorry!”

“Hey, Darce,” Bucky murmurs, drawing in close and this time Darcy doesn’t flinch when he touches her. He pulls her into his arms and she weeps in earnest. “Darcy- it’s okay,” he rasps, and he holds her tighter. Darcy buries her face into the crook of his neck, the move familiar and foreign all at once, and clutches at his sweater like a lifeline, the fabric soft in her hands. He seems warmer than she remembers, but the comfort of his arms is the same.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs into his shoulder. “So sorry!”

“Shh,” Bucky breathes, voice soft, and he kisses the side of her head tenderly. “It’s okay; we’re okay. You don’t gotta be sorry, doll. We were both in a shitty place.” Darcy’s not sure if it’s her imagination, but his voice seems shaky, like he’s trying not to cry. She holds him a little tighter as she laughs wetly.

“Did Sam tell you that?” she asks. Bucky huffs a laugh of his own, nose buried in her hair. His breath is hot, and Darcy can’t help but remember the last time they touched like this. It had been under no happier circumstances.

“He may have said something along the lines,” Bucky tells her. He makes no sign of wanting to move away and Darcy is content to clutch at him for as long as he’ll allow her. “Not that it needed telling; I forgave you months ago.”

Darcy can’t stop the soft sound of surprise that escapes her at the news. “What?”

He pulls away, just far enough so they can see each other properly. Bucky wipes at the tears on her cheeks and regards her with sad eyes. “I couldn’t stay angry for long- I tried, but the dreams…” he clenches his jaw. “It’s not like you didn’t have your reasons.”

She looks away, but Bucky doesn’t remove his hand, thumb still stroking her cheek. “I wanted to tell you,” she says, “but every time I tried to say anything, it was like something was holding me back. In the end you beat me to the punch.”

He smiles wryly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “We both fucked this up, didn’t we?”

She laughs mirthlessly, and closes her eyes for a long moment, eyes burning. “Just a little.”

“Can we start again?”

Darcy’s mouth parts open in shock. Bucky looks down at her solemnly, something sweet and vulnerable in his gaze. She wonders if this is how he’d look at her all the time had they met under lighter circumstances.

“I don’t want to give this up,” he carries on, and Darcy’s breath hitches as his eyes darken and his mouth sets in determination. “I don’t want to just let go of what we could be.”

“Neither do I,” she finds herself saying with little thought. She’s not lying, though. She doesn’t want to let him walk away. This is more than Darcy could have ever hoped for, but they’ve been through too much shit for her to just let him slip through her fingers.

Bucky pulls away from her completely and holds out his hand. Darcy places hers in his with only the slightest moment’s hesitation. His palm is dry and warm as he squeezes gently, his other hand wrapping around the scars on her wrist like a bracelet. She shudders at the touch, more grounded than she’s been in a long time.

“James Barnes,” he says gravely. “My friends call me Bucky.”

“Darcy Lewis,” she replies. “I was a time traveller once.”

He smiles and draws her in close enough that their breath intermingles, noses rubbing against the other. Darcy closes her eyes. Her hands tremble.

“Once upon a time, you said my words.”

“In 1944, you said mine.”

“Seventy years,” Bucky sighs. Darcy doesn’t dare open her eyes; his proximity alone is enough to make her pulse race, breath catching in her chest with every inhale. “Do you reckon the wait was worth it?”

She bites her lip. “I don’t know,” she says honestly. “But I think it could be.”

Bucky breathes in deep and slow, nose nudging against hers and Darcy tilts her head, following the movement. “I can’t promise I won’t hurt you again.”

She scoffs. “As if anyone can promise that,” she says derisively and he chuckles. He’s close enough that she can feel the heat of his lips against hers; the sweetest torture.

“I’m still fucked in the head most days.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” she sighs.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got you, doll,” he rumbles, hands cupping her face like a fragile thing and he closes the distance between them. Darcy’s breath shudders out of her chest as their lips brush. Her hands tighten in his sweater, the soft wool scrunching between her fingers and she makes a soft sound in the back of her throat when his tongue runs lightly over her upper lip before he pulls away.

Her eyes flicker open and Bucky looks down at her softly. “Months,” he tells her. Darcy’s lips tingle and it takes a moment to register what he’s said, brain still caught on their kiss. “I’ve wanted to kiss you again for months.” He swallows audibly, eyes sad. “I’ve missed you.”

Darcy licks her lower lip, and watches the way his gaze lingers on her mouth. She smiles. “There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t think of you,” she says, and Bucky’s eyes widen. He makes a soft, vulnerable sound, and kisses her again, lips pressing against hers desperately and Darcy returns the favour, mouth parting eagerly when his tongue runs over her upper lip again. He backs her up against the fridge and plasters himself to her like she’s the only thing tethering him to Earth, and Darcy revels in the weight and the warmth of him, the feel of him beneath her hands.

Bucky kisses her like it’s their last, fingers curling into her hair as he licks into her mouth, stealing the breath straight from her lungs. She’s half forgotten what kissing him had been like, but this feels like a homecoming of sorts, even when he breaks away again, the air between them charged with tension. Darcy closes her eyes again, shielding herself from his heated gaze.

“Did you… want to stay the night?” she asks. Bucky makes another surprised sound and her eyes fly open, cheeks turning pink in embarrassment. “Not like that!” she corrects herself when he raises an eyebrow. “I just meant- share the same bed- no funny business, I swear!” She smiles wryly. “Unless you _wanted_ funny business, but- uh- that’s probably moving a bit too fast.”

He chuckles and presses a tender kiss to her forehead that has her eyes fluttering closed. “Just like old times, huh?”

Darcy grins up at him. “Well, not quite like old times.”

“True; there’s no car to sleep in the back of this time around.”

“We could steal one of Tony’s, if you were so inclined.”

Bucky pulls a face. “I’d rather not… I’ve been kind of spoilt for choice since I came here. It’s a welcome change, trust me.”

She laughs. “Then my bed?”

Bucky reels her in for another kiss, saccharine sweet with the promise of future kisses. “I’d be honoured.”

Darcy takes only a moment to assess the feeling growing in her chest as she drags him to her bedroom, half-attempted mac and cheese sitting forgotten on her bench. The feeling pushes at her ribcage and fizzes like bubbles in her veins, Bucky’s hand in hers hot like a brand. She laughs when she realises what it is, and pushes him against the wall, kissing him quick and fiercely as though she can show him how she feels through actions alone.

She’s happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *breathes heavily* Words cannot describe how relieved and proud of myself I am right now. Never have I come so near to completing a story of this size before and I am so impressed with myself. I am also impressed with all of YOU GUYS, because HOLY SMOKES ARE YOU NOT ALL AMAZING AND WONDERFUL AND JUST- WOW. 
> 
> Seriously, you are all the best, and I'm so glad to have taken you along for the journey with this fic. Thank you. 
> 
> This is the last actual chapter. Just an epilogue after this. :D


	24. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy your rampant and unmitigated fluff and lowkey smut. You guys deserve it.
> 
> A huge and overwhelming thanks to rlw0810 and cutie-bug for giving this a read through- and for all the countless other chapters I've sent their way before. You guys are an absolue GIFT

Darcy is woken by a dip in the mattress and the rustle of blankets as Bucky pulls them back and slips in beside her. She grimaces at the rush of cold air into the bed, but rolls towards him anyway, eyes still firmly closed. He smells of sweat and Steve’s mildly obnoxious deodorant, and she recalls a vague and sleep-addled memory of him extricating himself from her some hours ago.

“Morning,” he says softly, and Darcy reaches for him blindly. His skin is hot and slightly tacky with dried sweat, and Darcy would complain, but he’s decided to forgo a shirt and she knows when to pick her battles.

“Hey,” she rasps, voice still stuck in her throat from sleep. Her hand runs up his arm, breathing out slowly at the feeling of warm skin beneath her palm. Almost on instinct, the move well-practiced, she seeks out his ribs; rests her hand open-palmed and possessive over the heavily scarred skin. Bucky shudders beneath her touch and she smiles. “How you feeling?”

“Better.”

“You enjoy your run?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, and Darcy finally opens her eyes. Bucky stares at her with soft eyes and a rueful smile, his hair still tied back in a sloppy bun, strands of hair escaping like they’ve a mind of their own.

“Sorry I woke you.”

Darcy huffs and smiles back lazily. “It’s time I should get up, anyway.”

Bucky’s gaze trails down her face and lingers on the bared skin of her shoulder, where the strap of her tank top has slipped down. “It’s a Sunday,” he says quietly. “Sleep-ins are sacred.”

Darcy huffs a laugh. “That was my rule, wasn’t it.”

“It was,” he says lowly, and curls into her to press a reverential kiss to her shoulder. “You were quite adamant about it, if I recall.”

She hums, and rolls onto her back, dragging Bucky with her so he lies half on top of her. The warm, secure weight of his body on hers is a comfort, and he snickers at the move- it’s one she’s pulled off plenty of times before. Darcy tightens her grip on the sides of his chest as he tilts his head up to kiss her. It’s slow- lazy. He tastes faintly of red Gatorade; she laughs into his mouth at the realisation. Bucky pulls back, looking mildly affronted.

“What?”

“Show us your tongue.”

He frowns at her in confusion and mild-disapproval and Darcy giggles at the sight. She laughs even harder when he complies, sticking out his tongue to show the unnaturally red stain.

“I thought you said you hated that crap.”

“Hated what?” he asks, eyes wide as he feigns innocence. Darcy scratches at his ribs lightly in retaliation and watches with satisfaction as his pupils dilate and his breathing stutters faintly.

“Last time you had Gatorade, you spat it out and poured all of Sam’s bottles down the drain.”

His gaze slides off to the side, cheeks turning a faint pink. “It… grows on you,” he admits grudgingly and Darcy bites her lip as she grins. Bucky’s eyes follow the gesture, and he leans back in to kiss her again. “It tastes better when you’re stealing it, anyway.”

Darcy lets out a sharp, startled laugh. “Sam is gonna give you so much shit.”

“I know,” Bucky sighs happily. “That’s why I do it.”

“Incorrigible,” she tells him, trying to be stern but failing horribly. “You’re meant to be the responsible one.”

He rolls his eyes and steals another kiss from her. “That’s not a very high standard to go by. Ninety percent of the tower are just kids with fancy jobs and costumes.”

Darcy sucks in a sharp breath as his mouth moves south, light stubble scratching lightly at the sensitive skin of her neck. “Jane and Thor are responsible!” she reasons, feeling like she needs to defend at least _someone_ in the Tower. “Magni’s a great kid!”

“Thor still thinks pop-tarts count as a nutritious breakfast.”

“Well aren’t we all high-and-mighty this morning, mister I-like-to-pretend-my-girlfriend-doesn’t-know-about-my-secret-stash-of-Captain-Crunch.”

Bucky glances up at her, mouth moving regretfully away from the top of her breast. “We’ve _talked_ about the Captain Crunch; it’s for Magni when it’s our turn to babysit.” And bless him, but he says it so seriously Darcy almost believes him. She raises an unimpressed brow.

“He’s two!”

Bucky looks sheepish. “I still maintain that was Pietro’s stash.”

“And Wanda maintains that you’re a dirty fuckin’ liar, so guess who I’m more inclined to believe.”

“… Me?”

She laughs, and his eyes brighten with poorly-disguised mirth. “Ridiculous.”

“You love me.”

The corners of her lips quirk, and she holds herself up with one elbow to cup the side of his face with her free hand. “I do,” she tells him seriously. Bucky huffs, flushing again, and buries his face between her breasts. She runs her hand through his sweaty hair comfortingly; even now, expressions of affection startle him, like he expects her to leave at any moment. His breath is hot against her skin, even through her tank top, and she shivers at the sensation, her body pressing up against him almost against her will.

Bucky peeks up at her and she raises her eyebrows in obvious challenge. “You _did_ wake me,” she tells him imperiously. He rolls his eyes, but his flesh hand creeps southwards, warm fingers seeking out the hem of her tank top. She sighs in resignation when he pushes the material up over her breasts, but doesn’t bother taking it off, the soft material gathering beneath her arms.

“ _Really_?” she asks laughingly, but Bucky ignores her in favour of palming her breast and rolling the nipple between his fingers. Her breath catches in her throat and Bucky smirks at her wickedly.

“I _did_ wake you. Seems only gentlemanly to make it up to you” he says, before his focus shifts back to her breasts, laving at the hardening peaks with his tongue. His mouth feels impossibly hot, and Darcy can’t stop her body from twitching eagerly beneath his care. She closes her eyes and revels in the expert way he works at her; her breasts have never been especially sensitive, but she knows from experience that extended attention to them can turn her into a gasping, whimpering wreck.

Today however, Bucky seems intent on other things, and soon enough his mouth trails lower, peppering kisses across her skin reverently. He rubs his stubbled cheeks across her lower abdomen like an affectionate cat who likes to keep guns under the bed and she laughs again at the faintly ticklish sensation, and parts her legs for him to settle between.

“I love you,” he tells her bellybutton, and something in her chest constricts at the admission. Declarations from him are rare- he still has trouble sometimes emoting properly, but Darcy always knows how he feels. He tells her in other ways; in soft kisses before bed, and bouquets of flowers on her desk and arms encircling her waist from behind as he slots himself behind her. Still, to hear the words so softly said- it makes her smile and run her nails through his hair in reward. Bucky hums happily.

“Love you too.”

“Steve’s gonna ask Sam to marry him.”

Darcy lifts herself up on her elbows to glare at her boyfriend. “Seriously?” she asks, unimpressed. Bucky at least has the grace to look somewhat sheepish. “You tell me this _now?_ Could the news not have waited until _after?_ ”

“I… only just remembered.”

“Only just-” her eyes widen- “hang on, _when,_ exactly, did Steve tell you this?”

He rests his chin lightly on her pelvic bone and looks up at her through his eyelashes. Darcy’s eyes narrow. “…Two days ago?”

“Are you serious?” she cries. “Two days? _James Buchanan Barnes,_ you are so _naughty_!”

Bucky wiggles his brows at her, the guilty look long gone. “Yeah?” he asks, voice rumbling from deep in his chest. The sound, uttered from between her thighs, is obscene. “You gonna punish me, doll?”

Darcy’s gut clenches at the implicit promise in his voice and she tightens her thighs around his shoulders in retaliation. She’ll never manage to strangle a man with them like Natasha, but right now she’s certainly tempted to try. “Keep talking like that and I’ll go looking for a wooden spoon,” she threatens him. Bucky just laughs at her, eyes growing darker. He nips lightly at her hip, and Darcy would mourn the loss of the lazy morning vibe if she weren’t so turned on.

“That a promise?”

She swallows, mouth dry. “Do you want it to be?” she asks carefully. They’ve not talked about this kind of stuff; for the most part, Darcy’s always thought Bucky was content keeping things vanilla, and while she was never going to complain, the idea of dabbling in _more_ has arousal coiling in her gut and a flush spreading across her cheeks. 

Bucky looks almost _shy_ when he looks at her again, and there’s a slight curve to his lips that makes Darcy’s heart throb just a little bit more for him. She loves this idiot of a man. “I mean… it could be fun, right?”

She runs her nails through his hair contemplatively. “It _can_ be,” she admits. “It’s _meant_ to be.”

His eyes light up in surprise. “You’ll think about it?”

She rolls her eyes. Like it’s such a burden for her (haha). “If that’s what makes you happy, of course I will you beautiful idiot.”

Bucky beams at her and she laughs when he leans up to kiss her soundly. “You-” he says breathlessly, in between kisses, “are. The best. Soulmate _ever_.”

She tightens her legs around his waist suggestively. “I know.”

He pulls away, grinning down at her, that familiar, intent look returning to his eyes and Darcy’s laughter turns into a breathy whimper as he rolls her nipple between his metal fingers. “Fuck!” she gasps, body unsure if she wants to lean into the touch or jerk away. Bucky smirks.

“We’ll get there,” he promises. Darcy bites her bottom lip and arches into his touch.

“We’d fucking better,” she growls. “I believe you were in the middle of something before you started talking about Steve?”

Bucky nods slowly, and his arm whirrs quietly, a familiar, steady sound in the quiet of their bedroom. “I was- sorry ‘bout that.”

“Well if you could carry on, it’d be much- _hah_ \- much appreciated. And this time don’t just tear the panties off.”

He snickers. “But where’s the fun in that?”

Darcy rolls her eyes at him. “I’m _sure_ you can find yourself some fun elsewhere.”

“Mm,” he hums. His mouth travels southwards once again and Darcy’s nerves seem to quiver with poorly disguised anticipation, and briefly she wonders at how _easy_ this thing between them has become. She can scarcely remember the first time they truly clicked into place. “I’m sure I can.”

She sighs happily, and lets her legs fall open a little further as Bucky rains kisses down her thighs. Her heart feels peaceful.

Things are good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is IT. The end. Really and truly, and I cannot thank you all enough for your interest and support in this fic along the way; it means so fucking much to me to have your wonderful, inspiring comments and love. Without a doubt, we wouldn't have reached this point if it weren't for you guys; never underestimate the merit of a comment to a writer. They mean the world to us.
> 
> Cinna out

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget you can always check me out on [tumblr](http://cinnaatheart.tumblr.com/) :D


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